


Making Choices

by gestaltrose



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Incest, M/M, Multi, Sibling Incest, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:20:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gestaltrose/pseuds/gestaltrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter was grudgingly taken to the States with his family, when they are killed and Harry is saved by John Winchester, his life changes forever.  Harry is adopted, and now has two brothers. There are Death Eaters, hauntings, talking snakes, an old woman who Dumbledore respects, portkeys, a certain black dog, magic, demons, and boys just trying to live and grow up.  In the end, it’s all about family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Written for lj community sncross_bigbang. I had an idea for a crossover of Supernatural with Harry Potter. Then as I thought about Harry’s birthday, I realized it fell between Dean’s and Sam’s and then my muse wouldn’t let it go. I had to figure out how to get them together and it just ran from there. I hope you enjoy reading this half as much as I enjoyed writing it.  
> Jan 24, 1979 – Dean  
> July 31, 1980 – Harry  
> May 2, 1983 – Sam  
> lj user lightthesparks was my artist. [Beautiful Art Here](http://lightthesparks.livejournal.com/2948.html)

**_It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny_** ~Jean Nidetch  
Early August 1990  
Dean is 11 and a half  
Harry has just turned 10  
Sam is 7 just that May

The little boy never cried. Sam watched as the little boy’s family hurt him again and again, but he never cried. At least not that Sam saw. There was a large walrus kind of man that Sam thought might be the boy’s father and a super skinny bird-like woman who was always peering down her nose at everything. But Sam was most interested in the boy and his brother. The other boy had a name. Both the woman and the man used it, Duddy or something, but they always called the boy, boy.

Sam noticed him because he was cooped up in this stupid motel room with Dean, who wouldn’t let him do anything because Dad had left him in charge. Sam thought whatever Dad was doing had something to do with their mom’s death because Dean told him not to bug Dad when he got back. Which should be anytime, and that was why Sam was looking out the window. The main reason Dean made him leave Dad alone was “Mom stuff”, as he called it.

Sam was bored, sitting and watching for Dad, when he saw the little boy. He had noticed the whole family pull up a few days before. The man had been complaining about people driving on the wrong side of the road, which had caught Sam’s attention. Well, that and the accent that they talked in. Sam had pointed them out to Dean and told him they talked funny. Dean had hit him on the back of the head and told him that they were English. At Sam’s confused look, Dean had sarcastically said that they were from England, across the ocean.

Sam had been to the ocean once. The sand had burnt his feet and the water had smelled and there was no end to it. The ocean had scared him because up to that point he had always had a horizon, but the ocean looked like it went on forever.

Watching people was something that Sam did well. He watched facial expressions and the way people spoke to each other to get clues about what they would do. Dad had left them with a couple of people that Dean had later told him were crazy, but all Sam had known was that something would set them off. One time Sam coughed, and because he hadn’t been watching for it, he had ended up backhanded, told to cover his mouth and then chased out the door with a broom. Dean had ended up yelling at the guy and at Sam.

Dean stood up between them and told the guy that he would have to go through him to get to Sam and the guy had laughed and ruffled Dean’s short hair. Dean backed off and made it to Sam just as the guy went back in his house, the door swinging shut behind him. That was when Dean told him that the guy was crazy. Sam wondered sometimes if Dad was crazy but the one time he mentioned it, Dean jumped down his throat so he just kept that thought to himself anymore.

So Sam had taken to watching people so he could be prepared. But there was something about this family, something wrong. Sam had yet to see the little boy play but the bigger boy was running all over the place, poking sticks into things and then he kicked the boy as he ran past on the breezeway. Sam knew from experience that that hurt, like hell. The little boy only curled into himself holding onto his glasses that were too big for his face and the bigger boy called him a freak.

“Dean?” Sam called his brother.

“What?” Dean snapped and Sam wanted to sigh. Dean was always mad at him anymore.

“What’s a freak?” Sam asked.

“What?” Dean asked again, this time walking over to where Sam was sitting at the window.

“What’s a freak?”

“Why do you want to know?” Dean asked. Just then there was a huge wail that sounded throughout the courtyard of the motel.

Sam looked and the big boy was crying and the large man and the bird woman came out and comforted him. Sam knew what that was like because Dean would comfort him and he would quiet down. But this boy only cried louder and pointed at the small boy who was still curled up.

“Get in the room, you freak!” the large man yelled and the bird woman shushed him and looked around. Sam leaned back against Dean so that she wouldn’t see him looking out the window. Then they all went inside.

“It’s not a nice thing,” Dean answered his question.

Sam nodded. He had figured that much out himself. Then he heard the low rumble that was Daddy’s car and he slid out of the chair by the window and rushed to the door.

“Sam.” Dean’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Remember?”

Slumping away from the door, Sam moved back to his chair at the window. Dad needed to be left alone. Sam couldn’t tell him about how he found a baby bird on the ground but it was dead and he buried it or about the little boy or anything. Sam pouted.

“Come on, Sammy.” Dean poked him and Sam glared at him. Sam gave him a big fat fake grin, and then Dad walked in the door.

“Dad,” both Sam and Dean said.

“Boys.” John Winchester acknowledged them and, dropping his bag on the table in the tiny kitchen this place had, he dug in it. “Here.” He tossed a couple of toy cars to Dean who snatched them out of the air. “Share,” he said and, grabbing some clothes, he went into the bathroom.

Dean looked at both cars before taking the pickup and giving Sam the car. Sam started to whine and then Dean pointed out all the cool things about his car and Sam shut up. Dean was right. He had a really cool car; it was even the same color as Dad’s.

Later, after they had all eaten dinner, mac and cheese again, Sam was tucked into bed and Dad was reading him a story. He could feel his eyelids getting heavy but he fought to stay awake and listen to his dad. Then there was a whump. Sam’s eyes were wide as he sat up. Dean was standing in his night shorts and he looked ready to run. Sam’s heart began to beat faster.

“Dean, watch your brother and don’t break the salt lines,” Dad snapped at him as he pulled a shotgun from under his bed. Sam watched wide-eyed as he left the room.

“Is Dad a cop?” Sam asked Dean, who looked at him like he was crazy. “He had the gun.” Sam knew his Dad had guns, he had sat through target practice before, but he had never seen his father like he just had. He looked like one of those cops on TV when he ran out.

“No,” Dean said and then they heard another whump. Sam went to look out the window, careful not to touch the salt that lined the sill. There were flashes of green light and then the sound of the shotgun rang out. There were these people with robes and Sam wondered if there was a church around because the only people he had ever seen wear robes had been in a church.

Dean saw Dad first and he threw the door open. Dad was carrying something in his arms and he yelled at Dean to grab the bags and Sam. They had to go. Now. Sam knew that tone so he grabbed his bag from the end of the bed and Dean’s too, while Dean threw what groceries they had into a paper sack. After quickly checking the room, he picked up Dad’s clothes out of the bathroom and shoved them into his bag. All Sam could think was that everything was going to stink like Dad’s dirty clothes and then Dean was pulling him out the door. Sam was shoved in the back seat, and Dad’s bag was tossed practically on him. Sam yelped and Dad shot him a look that shut him up quick. Dean got in and they were gone.

A few miles down the road, Dad slowed down a little bit. “Is he okay?” Dad asked and Dean turned to look back at Sam.

“Fine,” Dean said.

“Not Sam, the other boy,” Dad told him. It was only then that Sam noticed a kid on the other side of the bags he had pushed in the car. It was the little boy, the one that big boy had kicked and the man had called a freak.

Dean looked back but it was dark and Sam could tell he could hardly see the boy. Sam reached over and touched him. The boy gave a small moan and then he tilted his head just as they passed an off ramp. The lights flicked through the car reflecting off of his glasses and Sam saw blood coming from his forehead. “He’s bleeding, Dad,” Sam said.

“How bad?” Dad glanced at Dean who was trying to crawl into the back seat to check on the boy.

Fishing the first aid kit from under the front seat, Dean found a clean cloth and held it to the boy’s head. He moaned and Dean jumped a little. Sam watched as the boy’s eyes flickered open. He looked at Dean in confusion and then started to fight him. At least that’s what Sam thought.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked him. Sam could tell he was scared because Sam had been scared a lot. “It’s okay. What’s your name? Mine’s Sam and that’s my big brother Dean and my Daddy’s driving but he helped you because that’s what he does, help people, Dean told me so.” Sam took a breath and the boy gave him a little smile.

“Harry,” the boy said and Sam wondered if he was telling Sam that he was hairy.

“Hi, Harry,” Dean said and then Sam knew that it was his name. “You’re bleeding. You want to put this on your forehead?”

Harry looked at Dean in surprise and then he put his hand up to his forehead, pulled back his fingers and looked at them. Sam could see that they were darker with blood. The boy, _Harry,_ Sam reminded himself, took the cloth from Dean and pressed it against his forehead with a wince.

“Does it hurt?” Sam asked Harry after Dean had climbed back into the front seat.

“Yeah,” Harry said.

“But why don’t you cry?”

“Not allowed.”

“Oh,” Sam said. “Why not?”

“The Dursleys,” Harry said and then he choked with fear, Sam could tell. Sam’s eyes widened as he watched Harry push his fear away. “They’re gone. I’ve got no one,” Harry said quietly.

Sam patted his hand. “You’ve got us.”

Dean and Dad had been talking in the front seat. “Where are your parents?” Dad asked Harry.

Harry looked hurt and scared again. “D. . d. . dead,” Harry stuttered.

Sam looked at Harry sadly. His mom was dead, too. She had died when he was a baby and didn’t remember her. He squeezed Harry’s hand. “My mom’s dead, too,” he whispered, because he knew it made Dad sad when he talked about her.

“Who were those people?” Dad asked another question, his voice a bit gentler. Sam felt the rumble of the car trying to put him to sleep but he wanted to understand what was going on, too, so he pinched himself.

“The Dursleys?” Harry sounded as confused as Sam felt.

“Sure,” Dad replied.

“My aunt and uncle and my cousin Dudley. She’s my mom’s sister,” Harry said.

“Who were the other people?” Dad asked and Sam watched as Harry shifted in his seat. Sam could tell Harry was going to do something stupid like make up a story because he had that same look that Dean would get sometimes right before he made a really bad decision. Reaching out, Sam took Harry’s hand and, when the boy looked at him, he shook his head. Making things up was a bad idea.

Harry seemed to deflate. “I don’t know, sir.”

“Is there anyone I can call?” Dad asked.

“No, there’s no one.” Harry sounded sad so Sam dug in his bag until he found the car that Dad had given him. He held it out to Harry. Harry looked at the little thing as if wondering if he could pick it up.

“Here,” Sam said.

“Thank you,” Harry said quietly.

“He can stay with us, right Dad? What if those bad people want to hurt him? You are the bestest dad, I’m never scared when you’re here,” Sam said all in one breath.

“Sam, he’s not like a dog. We can’t _keep_ him,” Dad said. “Let me think.”

Those three words shut Sam’s mouth. Sam knew if he argued with Dad after he told Sam to let him think, then the answer to whatever question Sam had would be no. So Sam smiled at Harry and showed him how to play with the car because he really didn’t seem to know how.

“Dad’s really smart,” Sam said. “He’ll think of what’s best.”

Harry nodded and ran the little car back and forth on his leg. Sam wondered if Dean ever felt scared. He looked up in the front and could just make out the shape of Dad and Dean. Dean seemed to know that Sam was looking at him because he turned his head and Sam watched as they passed a light outside. He looked worried but not scared.

“You should try to sleep, runt,” Dean said. Sam couldn’t help being smaller than him. Harry turned to look at Sam, who was making a face at Dean.

“Good idea,” Dad said from the front. “You should all try to sleep.”

Sam showed Harry how to make pillows out of his and Dean’s duffels. Sam and Dean were still in their night clothes but Harry had the same clothes on that he had on earlier, and Sam could smell smoke on them. Digging in his bag again, Sam found a t-shirt and offered it to Harry.

Harry shook his head and looked up at the back of Dad’s head.

“Come on,” Sam said quietly. “Your shirt is huge and it’s dirty.” Sam didn’t want to mention the smell. “Just try it. Dad won’t care.”

“Dad won’t care what?” Dad asked, never taking his eyes off the road.

“If Harry borrows one of my shirts. His is dirty. He can’t sleep in it.”

“Fine, just you boys rest now.”

Sam beamed at Harry and passed him the shirt. When he took the one he’d been wearing off, Sam shoved it in a plastic bag in his duffle. Harry looked worried. “I’ll keep it safe,” Sam said. “I promise.”

Satisfied, Harry nodded and then put Sam’s shirt on. Sam could see bruises from where the fat man had kicked him and older ones, too. Harry put his head down on Dean’s duffel, his feet towards the door, took his glasses off and put them in the back window. Sam laid down the same way so their heads were close to each other.

“My Dad doesn’t hit,” Sam whispered to Harry. Sam thought he saw something like fear in Harry’s eyes again before it was gone.

“All right,” Harry whispered back.

“Never,” Sam whispered, trying to reassure his new friend. “It’ll be okay.” Sam reached out and took Harry’s hand, noticing that they were nearly the same size. The hum of the car and the lack of sleep soon put both boys to sleep.

When Sam woke up they were parked and Dad was talking to Harry, very seriously. Sam spotted them out the window where they were sitting at a picnic table. They had stopped at a rest area and Dad was quizzing Harry, Sam could tell, and Harry shook his head and looked ready to cry. Seeing that Dean was still sleeping in the front seat, Sam tried to get out of the car quietly, not slamming the door shut. Dad looked over at him and pointed to the rest rooms.

Sam went to the bathroom and was washing up when Harry burst in. “I get to stay. Well, your dad said he was going to have some friends look into things but if everything I told him was true, I get to stay.” Harry was grinning and Sam grinned back.

It was almost like getting a new brother. Sam was very happy. “Good, I like you,” Sam said. “Even if you do talk funny.”

“I talk funny?” Harry asked.

“You sound funny and you say your words weird sometimes,” Sam said. “But that’s okay. Dean said it’s because you’re from England.”

“You sound funny to me, but that’s because you’re American and everyone here sounds funny to me. Maybe I should practice so I can sound more like you.”

Sam thought that this was a wonderful idea and offered to help. Sam and Harry made up a game. Every time Harry would say a word that Sam didn’t recognize, he got three guesses, and the same for Harry with Sam. Sam learned that garbage cans were called bins or dust bins and big trucks were called lorrys. Harry learned that jumpers were called sweaters and Sam learned that sneakers were called trainers.

Driving for a couple of days, Dad took them and Harry to see Uncle Bobby, who tested Harry. Harry told Sam that they put him in a circle and chanted at him in a foreign language and then smiled at him. Sam was happy because Harry liked Uncle Bobby just like he did.

Uncle Bobby liked Harry, too. Sam knew because he snuck downstairs after Harry was asleep in the bed they were sharing and he listened to Dad and Uncle Bobby talk.

“John, that boy’s been abused. He is so unused to anything good happening to him, he takes to the littlest praise as a flower turning to the sun. You could be good for him. Hell, compared to what he was living with, you’re a saint and that’s saying a whole lot. But, you need to be careful. He’s had a huge amount of sorrow in his life. He could be easily led. If you do this, you need to make sure the boy can think on his own, not just this blindly following orders thing that you try to do with your boys.” Bobby spoke low and Sam had to be very quiet to hear him.

“But, I . . .” Dad sounded like he was going to be mad.

“You got your reasons, I know. You also know I don’t approve of the way you drag those boys around. Dean is falling in just where you want him to, but if you’re not careful you’ll break him with too much responsibility. They’re children, John. Not soldiers in this war. One day they probably will be, but not now. Harry will be great for you and the boys. I’m just tellin’ ya to be careful.”

Dad gave a grunt and Sam heard him walking toward the door so he quietly went to go back upstairs. Dean was there, not too far behind him, and Sam hadn’t even known it. His eyes widened and Dean just gave him a crooked smile and they both scooted back upstairs before Dad or Bobby caught them.

A month later, Sam was at school in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. He started the third grade. He was supposed to be in second grade but in first grade he got moved up and Dad had all his records. Harry was in fifth grade. Dad had asked Harry how old he was and Sam had been surprised to hear that he was only one year younger than Dean, not Sam’s age like he thought. Harry was really small for his age and Dad and him had talked and decided that it might be better to try fifth grade and not sixth, which he was old enough for.

Dad and Uncle Bobby had come up with papers that said that Harry was their brother. Dean said adopted brother but that was the best kind, because they chose Harry. Not like Sam. Sam had gone after Dean trying to beat him up until Harry had asked him to stop. Dad sat down with them and talked about responsibility and a whole lot of other big words that Dean told him later meant they were supposed to love and watch out for each other. Well duh, that’s what Winchesters did.

Harry had gotten new glasses and Dad had been sad when Harry was grateful that he got to pick them out. Sam liked them, they suited his brother better than the other ones and the doctor had said the prescription was all wrong for him.

Sam and Harry were going to the elementary school while Dean attended the junior high. Getting out of class first, Dean walked to their school to meet them and then they walked home together. Dad was working at a local auto body place while doing his other stuff at night; sometimes leaving Dean to watch them, sometimes taking them all together for a day trip during the weekend.

Driving to this old building one Saturday, Dad got them all out of the car.

“Dean, what do you think?” Dad asked.

Dean sniffed. “It looks like an old school or church. Some of the kids at school talk about a haunted school in St. Nazianz. This might be it.”

“Sam?” Dad asked. This was a game they played regularly. Dad asking them what they thought about something. He always said first impressions were important.

“It’s creepy.”

“Why? Because of what Dean said?” Dad asked him.

Shaking his head, Sam looked up at the tall building. “Someone died. People sometimes come and play here and it makes them mad.”

“Makes who mad?”

“The lady, it makes the lady mad. She scares me. Can we go?”

“In a little bit. Harry, what do you think?”

Sam didn’t think it was fair to Harry since he had never played the ‘what do you think’ game before and Daddy didn’t explain it. His teacher, Mrs. Franz, said that you should explain what you want done first. Harry looked at Dad and then up at the building. He shivered. Sam watched as goosebumps spread all over his arms.

“I . . . I . . .” Harry stuttered and Sam reached out and caught Harry’s hand in his. Harry still stared at the building but his fingers tightened on Sam’s. “I think we should leave.”

“Okay,” Dad said. “Why?”

“She drowned them, all of them,” Harry said quietly. “Now she’s sad and crazy.” Harry turned from the building and looked at Daddy. “Can we go now, sir? Please?”

“Fine,” Dad said and put the car into drive. “You boys have been a big help.”

Harry looked at Sam and the other boy shrugged; he didn’t know what the whole thing was about. Getting home, Dad let Sam and Harry go outside and play. Harry asked him about what Dad did. Sam wasn’t sure but he had some guesses. He was kind of afraid to say anything, so he said he didn’t know. Which was the truth since Dad and Dean never told him what Daddy did. Dean had made it clear Sam wasn’t even supposed to ask. Harry surprised Sam by just letting it go.

“Do you move a lot?”

“We,” Sam stressed, enjoying that Harry was now part of their family, “move more than anyone else I’ve met. Except at this one school in California that was near a navy base. Some of the kids there had moved almost as much as Dean and me.” Sam sighed. He knew it wasn’t normal but it was normal for them. “Dean can say it better. Wanna play cars?”

“Sure,” Harry said.

Hours later they were called inside. Dean served dinner and then asked Dad if Harry was a Winchester now, too. All of the boys got silent and listened for Dad’s answer. “Yep,” Dad said and ruffled Harry’s hair just like he did Sam’s.

They had cake for dessert to celebrate.

Within days after that, Sam noticed there were all these birds around. Owls all day and night and then hawks and bigger birds. Sam pointed them out and Dad dismissed them, but soon there was too many to ignore. Sam watched as Dad walked out the front door and spoke to the birds which Sam thought made him look a little crazier.

“What do you want?”

He was amazed as a bird brought a letter down and dropped it into Daddy’s hands. Dad stared at the birds and back down at the letter. He turned and brought it inside. Examining the letter, he turned it carefully in his hands before turning it over. “Department of Magic,” he read out loud and the red wax seal fell away. The letter started to speak in a very nice woman’s voice.

“Dear Winchester family,

It has come to our attention that you have adopted a magical child. Our records show that your own magical child will soon be of age. Normally, we wait until the child’s eleventh birthday; however, exceptions are made in the case of an adoption. We have enrolled Harry Winchester in the Salem Academy for Wizards and Witches and there is a spot saved for Samuel when he is of age. However, you may choose to tutor your child privately. Your selected tutor must be by a certified Magic instructor or we can block your children’s use of magic permanently.

Please inform us of your decision. You can contact us directly by calling the number on the letterhead or by sending us a letter to the address on the same. The US Postal Service will deliver it directly, there is no need to send your reply via owl post.

Congratulations on your adoption! By adopting a magical child, you have been put under restrictions of which you may not have been aware. Please see attached paper containing the laws and statues that govern magic use in the United States of America. Magic practice outside of school is strictly prohibited, unless supervised by a licensed tutor.

Sincerely,

Martha Hathaway  
Department of Magic”

Laughing, Sam looked around. It had to be a joke, right? Dad flipped through the pages, reading to himself. Watching, Sam saw him look up at Harry and then at Sam. He dropped his eyes back to the paper after meeting Sam’s gaze. The smile dropped from Sam’s face and he shared a look with Harry and then Dean. What did this mean?

“What?” Sam started to ask.

“Not now, Sam, I have to read. Why don’t you and Harry go play?”

“But what?”

“Not now!” Dad snapped.

“Fine,” Sam said. “Come on, Harry.” Sam dragged his new brother outside.

Sitting cross-legged and facing one another, they talked about what they thought the letter was about, about magic, about school and schools for magic. Sam wanted to talk about the scary school but he wasn’t sure how to bring it up. Harry did it for him.

“Why did your . . . our,” Harry corrected himself with a smile, “dad take us to that scary place?”

Harry was asking him the same question that he had before about what Dad did, he just didn’t know it. This time Sam decided to tell Harry what he thought. Sam was uncertain but he had some ideas. Knowing that Dean knew more about what was going on drove him nuts so he had spent a lot of time thinking about it. He also knew because Harry was older, he was almost as old as Dean, that he would find out before him. So Sam explained what he thought Daddy did with a lot of ‘I guesses’ and ‘I thinks’.

Some of the kids at the school in California had said his Daddy was crazy when Sam had tried to explain what he did. Then they had teased Sam until Dean had found out and said something to the kids that made them go all pale. They just left him alone after that.

Trying to explain what he thought Dad did left Sam all stressed out and twitchy. First, they weren’t supposed to talk about it. Second, he wondered if Harry would decide he didn’t want to be a part of their family if he knew about whatever it was that Daddy did. Third, Dean and Dad had both made it clear that it wasn’t something they liked being talked about. So Sam sat and held his hands together to stop them from fidgeting, waiting for Harry’s response.

Harry just looked at Sam very seriously. “He fights bad guys?”

Sam nodded. “Like the ones that got your other family.”

Sitting quietly, Harry seemed to think about that for a while. Then he nodded and smiled at Sam. “Makes sense.”

“That’s what I thought,” Sam said.

“What did you think?” Dean asked as he walked up behind them.

Harry and Sam looked at one another and then both of them turned to look at Dean. “I was ‘splaining what Daddy does. Harry doesn’t know about the special work so I was ‘splaining it to him.”

“Explaining,” Dean corrected him and Sam stuck his tongue out at Dean. “Dad’ll tell Harry when he wants him to know, Squirt. You know that.”

“But, Dean,” Sam whined and Harry looked between the two of them.

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Harry said and Dean nodded.

“Trust me, you don’t.” Dean turned and walked away.

Dad finished his job and they moved just after Christmas. They were going to move before that but Sam had figured out that Harry had never celebrated Christmas before so he asked Dad if they could stay and have a tree and presents. Dad had looked at Harry, Sam, and Dean and then gave a little shrug and Sam cheered and danced around until Dean told him to stop acting like a loon.

Christmas that year was great. Daddy invited Uncle Bobby up and they had a tree and decorations. Dad showed Uncle Bobby the letter. Watching closely all the time he was playing with his cars, Sam wondered what Uncle Bobby would do.

“I don’t like it, John,” Uncle Bobby said. “The witches I’ve met are all either sadly disillusioned or they get their power from Them.” Sam shivered at the tone of Uncle Bobby’s voice. “But,” he continued a little quieter, “there are some people I can ask. You might want to give Missouri a call; she might know something.” Sam wondered why dad was supposed to call a state then he figured it was someone’s name. Dad shook his head and Uncle Bobby argued some more but quieter so that Sam couldn’t hear. Finally Dad agreed to something.

Sam went shopping with Dean for presents. He even managed to get a knife for Dean, telling him it was for Dad. Daddy took Harry shopping and Uncle Bobby took Dean. Harry came home in tears and Daddy looked upset.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

“I am,” Harry said.

“What’s wrong with you?” Sam asked, trying to figure out why Harry was crying.

“Dad took me to get my hair cut but I didn’t want to. My hair broke the lady’s scissors and then she got clippers that just stopped working. I am a freak,” Harry said as he sat down on his bed with a thump.

“Dean said that wasn’t a nice word. You’re not a freak.” Sam was still confused about why Harry was upset. “Did the lady hurt you? Were you scared? How did your hair break the scissors? The clippers scared me before so I only get haircuts with scissors but Dean and Daddy get theirs done with the clippers.”

“Sam,” Dad snapped at him. “One question at a time.”

Sam shut his mouth, nodded, and looked at Harry. Harry gave Sam a small smile, which Sam thought was a good sign, then he told a story about before, as he called it.

“They always wanted everything perfect. She wanted everything perfect but I never was. There was one time when she shaved my head because of my messy hair and the next morning it was all grown back. I don’t know how - maybe it was this magic stuff or maybe I’m just a freak,” Harry said quietly.

“Sam’s right, that’s not a nice word. I don’t ever want to hear you call yourself that again, understand?” Dad spoke firmly.

Harry looked a little scared but he nodded.

“It sounds like something you can’t control. It’s not your fault. Maybe I should write back to that lady from the school. Maybe she could recommend a tutor, because I don’t think I’m comfortable just sending you off to school for nine months of the year. You’re a Winchester now and we take care of each other.”

Sam nodded and looked at Dean. Dean always watched after him. It wasn’t often Sam got to return the favor.

Moving them to Billings, Montana, Dad found a job with a local auto shop and Dean, Harry and Sam went back to school. Sam helped Harry to settle in. He found it was easier to move this time, because even if Harry was older than him, he still needed help. Dean turned twelve on January 24th and they had a small party. Soon after Dean was going on hunts with Dad, leaving Sam and Harry at home, alone sometimes and sometimes with a sitter.

They had this one sitter and Sam told Dean that she was an old Indian woman. Dean had smacked him and told him that she was a Native American member of the Crow nation and that they were lucky she would watch them. Sam tried to explain he hadn’t meant anything bad but Dean just ignored him, like usual. She was strict but in a different way from Dad. Sam couldn’t explain it. Harry could though. Boundaries. She set them and they didn’t change. You knew what to expect. With Dad, it wasn’t like that. Everything was fluid, changing.

Harry was the one who figured out that Nana Bishee would tell them stories if they behaved. She was horrid when she was cross so Harry and Sam tried to stay on her good side. Soon, whenever Bishee was around, Harry and Sam hurried through their chores so they could sit and listen to her tell them stories.

Stories of the Red Woman, who helped make men and women and tricked the Coyote’s wife into making women-men and men-women. They were special people who were feared and respected. Harry was quite interested and asked Bishee a bunch of questions. Sam didn’t really listen because he was worried about the Red Woman. Bishee had told them another story of the Red Woman a week before.

“Red Woman was walking one day and she came upon a pregnant woman. She killed the woman and cut the babies out of her stomach. Throwing one behind a curtain and one down a well, she then shoved sticks in the poor dead woman’s stomach and propped her up beside the teepee. Her husband came home and at first he thought his wife was alive but he pushed her and the sticks came out of her stomach and he knew that it was the Red Woman who had done this.”

Bishee looked at both Sam and Harry and had stopped her story. Sam wondered what happened to the boys but he was too afraid to ask.

Bishee also told them about the little people that lived in the sacred mountains. They sounded like fun to Sam but Bishee said they were not fun for little pale boys. Sam and Harry nodded. Dad stopped in the doorway once and listened to Nana Bishee talk about the little people. Coming in, he started to ask her questions and Bishee answered them. For some reason Daddy asked her about magic and she said that she had a passing acquaintance with it. Harry and Sam looked from her to Dad and back again.

Showing her the letter from the school had her frowning. Dad asked her if she was a tutor. At that, Nana Bishee threw her head back and laughed a deep belly laugh, her grey-streaked braid shaking against her back. She laughed for so long that Dad started to get uncomfortable. Sam could tell from the way he shuffled his feet. Finally winding down, she got serious and talked to Dad.

Yes, she could be a tutor. She used to run the school in Salem but she gave it up when she was needed back here, she explained to him. They shared a smile and that was when Sam got nervous. There must have been a parent code or something because, before Sam could turn around, he and Harry were taking classes from Nana Bishee.

 ** _Life is the sum of all your choices_** ~Albert Camus  
Late August 1995  
Dean is 16 and a half  
Harry has just turned 15  
Sam is 13 just that May

 

Harry loved his new family. Sometimes he would think about the Dursleys and he would feel guilty that he didn’t miss them at all. They were his family after all, wasn’t he supposed to miss them? Sam and Dean, although Dean never talked about it, both missed their mom. But they had also grown up with stories of how kind and beautiful she was. All Harry had ever been told of his family was that his Mom was a bitch and a slut and his Dad was a drunk and that they had died in a car accident. Now that he knew about magic, sometimes he wondered if his parents had been magical, too. That would go a long way to explain why the Dursleys were such pricks to him. They always hated anything different and if they had known about the magic . . .

Now he had a dad and two brothers, not an aunt and uncle who hated him. Harry remembered that the Dursleys hadn’t wanted to bring him to the United States with them. Uncle Vernon had been pleased when he won the trip but they couldn’t find a sitter to watch him for the three weeks that they would be here, his uncle unhappily agreed to bring him along. Harry couldn’t even remember being excited about it, the whole trip had been hedged in by rules and Dudley that he hadn’t enjoyed it at all.

But then those scary fucking people with the wands, he now understood, had come and killed everyone. They had tried to kill him but somehow Dad had come in and saved him. His scar, the one that had bled when he had been attacked by the green light, was a curse scar, Nana said. It connected him to the person who had given it to him in the first place.

Last week Nana had made arraignments for Harry and Sam to buy their wands. They had been practicing up to that point with some spare wands that Nana had. Nana had spoken with Dad and they had an argument. Harry had tried not to overhear but they were so loud that he couldn’t help it.

“He is a Winchester. I will pay,” Dad said.

“Don’t be blind as well as stubborn, John. Harry has money and you will be paying enough for Sam. It was put away just for things like this. It is what his parents wanted.” Harry wasn’t sure how Nana knew he had been adopted but he listened careful when she spoke about his parents. Nana was trying for reasonable, Harry could tell.

“Yeah, well, what they wanted almost got him killed. What if they can trace it?”

“I know goblins. Trust me, they can’t trace it. I give you my word.”

Harry held his breath waiting for Dad to answer. “Fine,” he finally snapped out. “But I pay for Sam.”

“Of course,” Nana said.

So Nana, Harry and Sam had flooed to the closest Wizarding center. Harry wasn’t even sure where the hell Checkmate Alley was, just that it was in the United States. Everyone recognized Nana but nobody paid any attention to the two boys she was leading around. Both Harry and Sam had on matching stocking caps because it was cold and Nana said that Harry was recognizable by his scar. Sam asked if Harry was famous then and Nana said, yes, in a way.

She led them first to a bank. A branch of Gringotts bank in Great Britain, Nana had told them. She spoke with a small goblin and they had asked for verification. Harry had to follow the goblin to a room where he inspected Harry’s scar and then tested his blood. Nodding at the results, he had led Harry back out to Bishee. They called him Mr. Potter and he spoke up. He was a Winchester now, thank you. They changed the name on the account and gave him some weird money. Nana said it was Wizarding money and then she exchanged money that John had given her for the same coins.

They went on the oddest shopping trip he’d ever been on, getting caldrons and robes for doing potions in, then they paused outside the animal emporium. Nana said that often children got familiars but they were not required and she didn’t think that the Impala would be the best place to raise a cat or an owl. Harry stared for a moment but then Sam was urging him on. They stopped outside a broommaker’s shop and Nana told them they would just have to make do with the old things she had for now. Harry had to drag Sam away from the racing broom display.

Finally they got to the wandmaker’s shop and both Harry and Sam stepped in cautiously. The place was filled with power. An old man stepped out of the back of the shop. He muttered and mumbled before he pulled a box off of a shelf.

“Black Walnut, ten and half inches, with Unicorn hair for the core,” he said and handed it to Harry. To him it felt odd, he tried a spell and was nearly thrown across the room.

“Nope,” the guy said and then he handed it to Sam.

Harry saw what happened when the wand and the user matched up. Sam and the wand both glowed, his aura visible to Harry. It looked like a rainbow twisting upon itself. The man nodded and exchanged a look with Nana that Sam missed but Harry saw. He puttered around in the back bringing Harry another couple of wands to try. Finally he made a phone call. Harry listened and the exchange was very cryptic but he understood that the guy on the other end was sending over a wand.

Moments later the fireplace flared green and out popped a box.

“Let’s try this,” the old man said.

Harry picked up the wand hesitantly. It felt almost like coming home. The wand seemed more like an extension of his arm than something separate. He assumed from Sam’s gasp that the wand and he were glowing as Sam had. “Holly, eleven inches with phoenix feather for the core.”

Nana’s head whipped around and the old man nodded. “Yeah, odd isn’t it. Brother to the one that gave you that scar,” he said, pointing to Harry’s forehead. Harry looked at Nana and back at the old man.

“What . . .?”

“I’ll tell you when we get home,” she interrupted him.

He wanted to yell at her that he wanted to know now. However, he and Sam had both learned that yelling never got them anything, so he bit his tongue and waited.

When they got home Nana Bishee had showed him newspaper clippings from the UK and told him that they were about him and his family. His mom and dad, the ones he didn’t remember, James and Lily Potter.

She told him the story of Voldemort. That he used to be Tom Riddle. That he wanted power more than anything. A lot of the way he was, was due to him growing up in an orphanage. Harry wondered where Nana Bishee found out her information but everything else she had ever told him was true so he didn’t doubt her. Tom was used to struggling for everything; Harry could relate. When he had been with the Dursleys he had to struggle for a lot of things.

But Tom did things that Harry would never do. He sought power and when he couldn’t just get it, he took it. Nana said that there were parallels between Tom and Hitler. Harry knew about Hitler from his history classes at school. Apparently both had been very persuasive speakers and both had distracted the main group of supporters from their power grab by finding a common enemy. For Hitler it had been the Jews, and then, slowly, anyone else that was a threat to him. For Tom it had been Muggles and then Muggleborns.

Tom didn’t make it far enough to take over the ‘Magical World’, or even part of it. But he did have a strong following of people. His main group of supporters was called Death Eaters, which Harry thought was a strange name, but then Sam pointed out that Hitler had his SS. Tom thought that ‘blood purity’ was everything and he tried through terror tactics to scare the Muggleborns out of the Wizarding World.

Nana explained about Muggles, Muggleborns, Half-Bloods, and Pure Bloods and it sounded very stupid to Harry. Nana Bishee agreed. All prejudice was stupid and usually it ended up biting you in the ass. Teaching him about magic, Nana explained that it didn’t make him better than someone who couldn’t do it. Harry agreed, because Dean and his Dad didn’t have magic and they were the best.

Dean was their protector. Nana said that he had always been Sam’s but once Harry was a part of the family, then he became Harry’s, too. Listening to Nana teach Dean was always interesting. She taught him about how to avoid curses and what could be used to reflect them back at their caster. Iron neutralized most spells cast and if he broke the spellcaster’s wand or hands, then they were usually helpless. Most classically taught wizards couldn’t cast without a wand in their hand and it almost always had to be their wand as opposed to someone else’s.

Learning how to fight against wizards, Harry watched Dean closely. Dad had them sparring against each other all the time. But this was different. Dean picked it up quickly and then soon he was teaching Sam and Harry how to fight like that, too.

Harry was small for his age. Dad figured that he always would be because of the neglect he had suffered as a child. Sam at thirteen was taller than him already but Dad said that small and fast was just as good. Uncle Bobby had agreed and they’d proved to him it was true.

Over a month later Harry had a different problem and he wasn’t sure who to talk to about it. Nana Bishee was the one who figured out that something was wrong and talked to him about it.

“It’s okay, you know,” she spoke quietly to him. Sam and Dean were outside sparring and Harry and Nana were inside watching them out the window. They stood there beside one another for a while.

“What is?”

She gave Harry a look that said a lot of things. “That you like boys. Even that you like those boys.” She nodded out the window at Sam and Dean.

Harry’s head whipped around so fast his neck popped and for a moment he felt dizzy. “But . . . I . . .”

“You haven’t lied to me in all the time we’ve know each other. You gonna start now? I am neither blind nor an idiot; please don’t treat me as such.” Her mouth was a stern line across her face. She raised an eyebrow as she waited for him to answer.

He shut his mouth and looked back out just as Dean stripped out of his shirt. His breath caught in his throat and his stomach started churning. Feeling sick, he looked at the wood grain of the floorboards. “It’s wrong. I’m wrong.”

Nana hit Harry on the back of the head. “I beat that nonsense out of my own kids and I will beat it out of you. You are the way you are. That is not wrong.”

“But,” Harry tried to explain while reaching up to fix his glasses that Nana had knocked loose.

“They’re your family. Yes, sir, I know that. I also know John Winchester and how he raised those boys and how he’s been raising you.”

“He never,” Harry said, defending his dad. The man had never tried to do what Nana was suggesting he had. He had never touched them or even looked at them like he wanted to.

“I know that,” Nana said abruptly. “You think I would have let you stay, let them stay with him,” she pointed her chin out the window at Sam and Dean, “if he was?” Shaking her head, she spoke on. “You boys only have each other. Yeah, there might be an occasional fling or something but it is never going to be anything lasting because of what you fight. Even a witch or wizard would have problems with demons and poltergeists and those who don’t know anything . . . well, let me tell you, if you get them to believe it’s real, they will run.” Nana gave him a small smile that told him she was talking from experience.

“It will always come back to you boys. John has been pushing you all together, forcing you to rely only on each other. Well, it doesn’t surprise me that, if you leaned that way, that you are attracted to them. They are very handsome. Even I can see what Sam will grow into and Dean, well, he’s already a heart breaker.” Nana Bishee stopped and looked out at Sam and Dean.

“You know it’s mutual, right?” she asked him and he looked up in surprise. She nodded. “They don’t know that I know but they watch you and each other a lot; always looking away when the other looks at them. I laugh about you boys all the time,” Nana said. “I wouldn’t be saying anything if it wasn’t heading down the road to a tragedy of Greek proportions. You have the best chance of understanding what I am telling you.”

Harry started to defend his brothers.

“Oh, I know they would hear me if I talked to them but they would be too embarrassed and ashamed to admit what I was saying was true. You can. Tell me, why do you think incest is against the law?” Bishee didn’t mess around but got right into the dirty stuff that Harry had been avoiding thinking about.

She had asked him a question. All questions from Bishee were a lesson, so Harry thought about it for a while, all the time keeping an eye on Sam and Dean sparring in front of him. Trying not to think about Dean’s flat stomach or Sam’s newly developing line of hair that led from his belly button, lower. Watching as they tumbled and rolled on the ground, he gave up.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“How about this,” Nana said. “What happened last summer when the Banty rooster got in with my hens and how did I know that he’d been in there?” She gave him a small encouraging smile.

“Half the eggs didn’t hatch and some of what was born was deformed,” Harry said, remembering having to help Nana get rid of them

Nana nodded and Harry thought. “The Banty was closely related to the hens. The deformities were because of recessives that came out.” He had paid attention in biology, trying to get a handle on why some people had magic and some people didn’t. “The main reason it’s,” he just couldn’t say incest, “against the law is because of recessives.”

Bishee grinned at him like he was her best student ever. “Yes. Basically. It makes sense, for a species, to not want inbreeding because of recessives. So, our species has made a societal norm that incest is wrong.”

“Societal? So other societies think it’s okay?”

“All societies have rules against incest. How it is defined changes with the society. With some, your lineage is matrilineal and anyone from your father’s side of the family, even your father, is fair game but your mother’s brother would never even be considered. With others, it’s a matter of degree. Fathers and brothers are out but first cousins are okay. With others it has to do with what group you belong to. Let’s say you were born into the ‘sky’ group because your father was a ‘sky’. Anyone from another group would be available, even your sister, as long as she wasn’t ‘sky’. But all rules on incest come back to reproduction. Can you have a baby?”

Harry looked at her incredulously. “No.”

“Can they?” She nodded out the window at his brothers.

“No,” Harry said and Nana Bishee got up and walked into her kitchen, leaving Harry with his thoughts.

Harry was very quiet at dinner. Noticing, Sam and Dean obviously thought he was sad because Dad had missed his birthday a few days earlier. So they tried to cheer him up until Nana said Harry had some things to think about and they were supposed to leave him alone.

Dean slipped into his room later that night. Sitting up, Harry fumbled for the light and Dean laughed at him. Quietly reminding him of his _Lumos_ spell, Dean was sitting on the end of Harry’s bed by the time Harry said the spell. Nana was teaching them how to do spells with wands and without. Harry flushed as he got a good look at Dean. Hoping that Dean would think he was embarrassed about the spell, he looked down. But not before the image of Dean, clad only in his pajama bottoms, was burned on his retina.

“Ummm.” Harry fumbled for something subtle and nonchalant to say. “Nice job today.” Harry smiled, that was good.

“I’m worried about you,” Dean said. “What’s going on?”

Harry pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “Nothing.”

Dean snorted. Sometimes Dean lorded it over Sam and Harry about how he was the eldest, about how he was their protector, and sometimes both he and Sam wanted to kill Dean. Dean opened his mouth and Harry glared at him. Raising his hands, Dean started to get up, but then he stopped and Harry found himself on the receiving end of a glare. What had he done now?

“This isn’t about _them,_ is it?”

“What?” Harry asked.

“About you thinking you’re worthless or weird.”

The Dursleys were about as far as you could get from where Harry’s thoughts had been, but he said, “I am weird.”

Dean reached over and grabbed Harry’s upper arms. Looking straight into Harry’s eyes, he said very slowly, “No you are not.”

Harry let go of his knees and slid his legs sideways. With Dean’s hands still on his upper arms, he leaned in and pressed his lips against Dean’s. It wasn’t the best kiss in history, nor the worst, but dry and mostly impersonal. Harry leaned back and looked into Dean’s eyes and then he looked down at the quilted coverlet that was on the bed.

“I am,” he whispered.

Dean sat there with his hands still wrapped around Harry’s arms. Harry could feel his fingers where they pressed into his skin. He didn’t pull away from Harry, he just sat there and Harry tried to decipher the look on his face. “Sorry,” Harry said and started to pull out of Dean’s grasp.

“I . . .” Dean gripped Harry a little tighter and pulled him closer. “God, help me. So am I,” Dean said and leaned in to kiss Harry. It was slow and he showed Harry how to move his lips and then he bit on Harry’s bottom one and Harry moaned. When his mouth opened, Dean claimed it. Dean claimed him. Tongues touched and twirled around each other. They kissed and kissed some more until Harry was lying on top of Dean with Dean’s arms wrapped around him.

“I wanna, I’m gonna,” Harry said, talking into Dean’s neck as he pushed his hard on against Dean’s, relieved to find out that Dean was just as turned on as he was. He didn’t want to just come in his underwear but he knew he wasn’t going to last long.

“It’s okay, just do it,” Dean said and latched on to Harry’s shoulder with his mouth. With a soft moan, Harry pushed against Dean a few more times before he felt his balls tighten and then he came with a gasp. Dean quickly followed, pushing up and coming, too. They lay there, Harry’s face buried in Dean’s neck and their come cooling between them.

Harry pushed up and looked down into Dean’s face, checking to make sure that they were okay. Dean smirked up at him.

“Well, magic boy, you got some way of cleaning us up?”

Thinking about it, Harry did a cleaning spell and a wave of warmth washed over him. Dean, too, if his expression was any hint. “How’s that?”

“Good,” Dean said. “I like magic sometimes.”

Harry crawled off of his brother. “Sometimes, so do I.” Dean got up and leaned over him, giving him another kiss before slipping back out of the room. Harry lay on his bed staring at the ceiling for a long time before murmuring, “ _Nox,_ ” and plunging the room back into darkness.

A week later Harry was in town catching a movie, by himself, when he was approached by a tall blonde man. “Harry?” the man said in a familiar accent. “I’ve word of your godfather.”

Godfather? Harry was distracted enough that the man closed in on him and, grabbing a hold of his jacket, shoved something into Harry’s hands and said a word. Suddenly, Harry felt as if a hook was shoved into his stomach and he was pulled somewhere. Portkey, he thought. Nana had explained about Portkeys and Apparation but this was going on forever. He landed abruptly on some grass. That was all he could see with his face a few inches from the ground and he gave his stomach a moment to settle before he turned over settling his glasses on his face.

He looked up and found himself surrounded by a bunch of people in masks. Thinking quickly, like he’d been taught, he looked confused and spoke in the deepest southern drawl that he could. “What the hell?” He tried to distract his captors until he could figure out a way to get out of here.

“Lucius.” A small rodent looking man spoke to the blond who had shoved the Portkey into his hands. Wait, if he could just get his hands on that thing, it should take him back home. Covertly he looked around, trying to spot it. Just as Harry thought he found it, someone cast a body bind on him and he fell to the ground, immediately trying to do the counter spell.

Looking up at the rat man, the blonde, Lucius, spoke quietly. “Your information was correct. The mutt did your job for you. Potter was easy enough to find after following that thing. Poor Potter,” Lucius looked back down at him, “he almost met his godfather. It’s really too bad, considering he escaped from Azkaban just to try and save him. Well, that, and kill you.” Lucius looked at the man like he actually was a rodent.

Stepping closer Lucius lifted his hair off his forehead. As Harry’s scar was revealed, there was an audible sigh that went around the circle of people. “Potter,” the man spat.

“No,” Harry said, still stalling and trying to get loose. “I’m a Winchester, and you people don’t know who you are fucking with. My dad . . .” Harry started to get angry but he was interrupted.

“Your father is dead. Just as you will soon be. But first . . .” He levitated Harry up and the rat man was messing with a cauldron. “Pettigrew, get on with it.” Lucius gestured with his wand and Harry’s arm fell free. The rat man took a silver knife and sliced his arm open, fairly deep. Blood ran down his arm and dripped off of his fingers into the cauldron.

For a moment Harry was dumbfounded. His father was dead? They had killed John? Then his brain caught up with him. Potter, they said Potter. He knew that James and Lily were dead. Nana had told him. They didn’t know about John or Dean or Sam.

“Blood of an enemy,” the rat man said and Harry thought to himself that he hadn’t been anyone’s enemy but he sure the hell was now.

Everyone stepped back as the cauldron began to bubble and out of it the rat man, Pettigrew (Harry was trying to remember names) pulled an ugly, deformed thing, like a sickly baby that grew at an amazing rate. Almost like a piece of origami unfolding, the thing grew into a bald, ill-looking man with red eyes.

“Harry Potter.” The man didn’t seem to be discomforted by his ‘spawning’.

“For the last fucking time, I am a Winchester and all of you are in trouble. And you,” he looked at the bald creature, “are dead.” Still in the body bind, he worked at getting free.

“Pet?” the man spoke to someone behind him. Feeling a pressure on his legs that slowly moved up his body, he desperately wanted to be free so he could see what it was. It was talking as it moved. Harry could hear it.

“It’s scared, and angry,” the voice said as it moved into sight. Nana had told him that he was an _íaxassee_ speaker, or snake speaker, when he had told her of hearing voices outside in the grass. She had proved it to him by bringing him a small garter snake and he had ended up chatting with it at length while Sam and Dean sat and stared at him. When they explained that he had been hissing at the snake, Harry had trouble believing his brothers but they had insisted and Nana had backed them up. Harry told them it sounded just like English to him and they had given him their best ‘whatever’ look.

However, this snake was huge. He could feel its weight all over his body and he wondered if he was going to be constricted to death. Or maybe bitten, as he got a good look at its teeth. “It smells like Potter,” the thing hissed in his face. “It smells like magic and sex, too.”

The bald man was watching him closely. Harry flushed a little when the snake said he smelled like sex and the bald man smirked at him. “You understand Nagini; you are Potter.” Harry shook his head and coughed to cover his hand getting free. They hadn’t bound it down so tight after they had cut him.

“I don’t understand anything,” Harry said.

“It’s lying,” the snake said and Harry wanted nothing more than to kill the stupid thing. “It’s excited.”

“You should consider joining me, Harry. We are similar, you and I.” The bald man moved in front of him and looked him in the eyes. Nana had told them of people who could read your mind and how to stop them. Harry felt his mind being invaded so he imagined the grossest things he could. Maggots on a buffalo calf that they had found still walking but blind. Nana Bishee had made Dean kill it, saying that sometimes killing is a mercy for everyone. Harry had puked chunks of his dinner after he watched Dean slit the calf’s throat.

He could feel the man’s frustration as he couldn’t get any further. “ _Crucio,_ ” the man said and Harry was overwhelmed by the most excruciating pain. It felt as if his muscles were going to peel off of his bones or snap them like twigs as they bunched under his skin. The man stopped the spell and tried again to get past Harry’s defenses.

Harry could feel his resistance weakening and the man got past them after another round of torture by that curse. Dad, Dean, Sam, demons, ghosts, and Nana Bishee; after he saw her, he retreated out of Harry’s mind and Harry held his hand out to where he thought the Portkey was. “ _Accio_ ,” he called out and felt something slap into his hand. Just as the man yelled, he was pulled sideways with the hook-in-the-stomach feeling again.

Landing on the sidewalk outside the movie theater, Dean, Sam and Nana were there and Harry didn’t even wonder why. They all helped him up and as he tried to babble they shushed him and got him into Nana’s old truck. Getting back to her place, Nana called in the medicine man who helped the tribe. While they waited, she questioned Harry.

He described what happened with the blond man called Lucius, the rat face man called Pettigrew and cutting his arm. Dean had already bandaged up his arm where it had been sliced open. Harry just stared at the white cotton and described what had happened next. Nana took a deep breath in as he spoke of the thing in the cauldron that turned into a man. His head started to ache, throbbing where his curse scar was.

Hanging his head in shame, he spoke of being cursed and how the bald man had gotten past his defenses. Nana Bishee patted his hand and did a quick scan of him. “You’re in pain,” she said. Nodding as the pain behind his eyes was growing exponentially, Harry quickly told them about getting free and getting the Portkey so he could come back. Nana nodded and patted him again.

Luke Johnson, the medicine man, showed up and Nana Bishee told Luke what had happened to Harry and about the curses. He pulled some herbs out of a pouch on his belt. Telling Sam to boil some water, he mixed them in a cup. Harry wondered what it was supposed to do for him because after it was brewed it smelled like the inside of his P.E. locker at school. Dirty socks and stale sweat. It tasted worse than it smelled, if that was possible. Harry pulled a face as he took a drink.

“Drink it all,” Nana said. “You need something to help your muscles heal after being cursed, it might help with the head, too.” Luke gave Nana a wave as he headed out the door after making sure that she knew what Harry was supposed to do.

Harry nodded and took another drink. Sam watched him the whole time. Rubbing his back occasionally, Dean asked, “Head better?”

Harry nodded again.

“You did a good job,” Nana said.

Harry shook his head and Dean smacked him on the shoulder. “You’re back and alive. Nana said she wasn’t sure that would happen. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“Were you scared?” Sam asked.

“Terrified,” Harry said to him and Sam nodded. “But, I knew I would get out. Either that or Dad and Dean and you would come for me.”

“Dean was working with Nana trying to pinpoint where you had gone when you came back,” Sam told him. “Dad’s on his way here. He was with Pastor Jim.”

Harry asked Nana if she knew who the bald man was and she nodded. “It’s Tom. Albus was afraid he had found a way to preserve his soul. He was just uncertain how. This is very disturbing news. I think I must get a hold of Albus and let him know what happened.”

“Tom as in Tom Riddle?” Dean asked. Nana nodded absentmindedly as she gathered some things together.

“I hate Portkeying but it is the fastest way,” she murmured to herself. “The man will never believe a letter.” Nana looked around at the boys sitting all bunched together on the couch, Harry in the middle. “I should be back no later than tomorrow. If I’m not back by the time your dad gets here, leave with him. Dean,” she looked at him with a firm gaze, “protect them,” she commanded and Dean nodded. Harry could feel some magic flowing around him and his brothers, settling on Dean.

Nana nodded and, grabbing a pair of the worst matched socks he had ever seen, she said, “Hogwarts,” and disappeared.

It was only after she left that Harry remembered about the ‘mutt’ that had led the Death Eaters to him. His godfather, they had said. Turning to Dean, he quickly told him about what the others had said. It had sounded as if the Death Eaters hadn’t wanted him to meet his godfather. He was still uncertain why they kept calling him a mutt.

There was a scratching on the door. Dean shared a look with Harry and Sam. Motioning them to get down and be quiet, Dean went to the door and looked out. He said the words that would bring up the wards on the house by anyone, Muggle or magical. “You are not invited here. You are not welcome.” Harry could hear whining and whimpering.

“You cannot enter if you mean to harm anyone inside,” Dean said and opened the door. A large black dog with matted fur and a horrible smell slunk into the house. Its tail wagged when it spotted Harry.

Dean spoke to the dog. “Nana will kill you if you break anything.” Harry watched, amazed as the dog changed into a ragged looking man. He was just as filthy as a human as he had been as a dog.

“Harry?”

Harry nodded reluctantly, and he felt Sam move closer to him. Glancing at Dean, he saw they were all in position to attack or defend, but some tone, some longing in the man’s voice told him that they weren’t in danger.

“Who are you? How do you know Harry? What do you want?” Dean snapped out the questions in staccato.

The man didn’t seem to have a problem answering to a teenager. “Sirius Black. I knew him when he was a baby. He was my Godchild. I was friends with his parents. I heard he was alive, when all this time I thought he was dead.” The man sighed. “Then someone said they had seen him in the States, so I came here to find him.”

Dean snorted. “We haven’t hid him. If someone wanted to contact him, they could have.”

Sirius nodded. “But I’m an escaped prisoner. I recently found out that Peter didn’t die in the explosion that was blamed on me. I knew then it had been him that had betrayed Harry’s parents and that he was in danger. I escaped and did a point me spell. It kept pointing west, so west I came. When I was here, an owl from Dumbledore found me and it said that he was dead. I knew it was a lie so I kept looking.”

“And you led those other guys straight to Harry,” Dean snapped.

Sirius looked ashamed and embarrassed.

“Why were you in prison?” Sam asked.

“I went to jail for killing Harry’s parents.” He put his hands up quickly as both Sam and Harry raised their wands at him. “But I didn’t, I swear. It was Pettigrew. He was their secret keeper, and he betrayed them and me.”

Harry nudged Sam and Sam reluctantly lowered his wand. “Can’t I just bind him?” Sam asked.

“He can turn into a dog and get out of your binds,” Harry said. To the man he suggested a hot shower and a cup of coffee.

“Shower’s great and coffee’s fine, but tea would be better. I don’t suppose any of you know how to make a good cuppa?” There was a longing in his voice that had even Dean laughing. “You wouldn’t happen to have a change of clothes?” Sirius looked hopeful and Dean nodded receiving a grin in thanks. Getting some of Dad’s clothes, Dean handed them and a towel to the man, showing him where the shower was.

A half an hour later a very different man sat across the table from them sipping tea and making faces. “Better than coffee I suppose,” he said and took another drink.

“You want to explain what is going on?” Dean asked, not quite threatening the man.

“It’s a long story,” Sirius said. Dean, Sam, and Harry all settled in their seats.

“We’ve got until Nana comes back,” Harry said.

“I guess I’ll start before Harry was born . . .” Sirius went on to describe the Marauders, and talked about Remus Lupin’s problem and how they all became Animagi to help him. He told them about wolfsbane and how it affected his friend.

“So you allow a werewolf to roam free?” Dean asked. Harry and Sam both looked at him. Dean knew about werewolves?

Sirius shook his head. “No, that’s why we became Animagi . . . he kept hurting himself on the wolfsbane but he was just a wolf, not a werewolf. As long as we were with him, and not in human form, he would be calm.”

Dean nodded and urged the man to continue.

Describing Lily and how James fell hard for her had Sirius laughing and Harry was enthralled. Here was a man who had known his parents, loved them. Sirius talked about Voldemort’s rise and how terrified everyone was. The Order of the Phoenix was described in detail, and Sirius waxed poetic about Dumbledore and Hogwarts.

“What about your family?” Dean asked, because Sirius had avoided mentioning his family.

“Ah, the noble and most ancient house of Black.” Sirius’ voice was so sharp it could have given someone a close shave. Holding out his hand, he bent down fingers one by one as he spoke of his family. “Bellatrix, my cousin the bitch. Regulus, my little brother killed by those he tried to serve. Narcissa, my cousin married to Malfoy. Andy, Andromeda, Narcissa’s and Bellatrix’s youngest sister and about as far from them personality-wise as possible; she’s dead too. My parents are dead, thank heavens. That leaves me as head of the family.”

He smiled at Harry. “And your godfather.”

“Sounds like a wonderful family,” Dean said sarcastically.

“So you see why you have to come back,” Sirius said and Dean snorted as Sam moved closer to Harry.

“We see no such thing. We’ll wait here for Nana or Dad and let them deal with you, unless you’d like to leave?” Dean suggested and took a seat at the table.

“Hell no. I’m not leaving without Harry.”

Dean slid his knife out of his leg sheath and, getting a whetstone, he slowly sharpened the edge. No one said anything for a long time. Harry heard Dad’s car pulling up outside. There was a door slam and then another one as he came in the house.

“Sam, Dean, Harry?” John Winchester called out.

“In here, Dad, with a guest,” Dean said.

Harry heard a gun cock in the other room and then Dad stepped into view. Sirius smiled a little smile and nodded at John. “Good boys you’ve got here.”

“I know,” John said and looked around. Harry saw him taking in everything, how they were sitting, how relaxed they were, or not, in the case of Dean. “You’re hurt.” John, of course, had noticed the bandage on Harry’s arm. Harry held it out for Dad to inspect. “You bandage this, Dean? Good work, except this corner could have been held down better. Like this.” John rewrapped the bandage, giving the end a little tuck before letting Harry’s arm go.

“Who’s he?” John flicked his thumb at Sirius.

Harry was pretty sure that if Dad knew that Sirius had been the cause of him getting kidnapped, he would get to see his very first evisceration. “Apparently my godfather,” Harry said.

“Wards up?” John asked. Dean nodded, looking insulted. “None of that, boy. I’m just making sure you didn’t forget anything. And he came in afterwards?” Dean nodded again.

“He was just telling Harry that he would have to come back with him,” Sam spoke up and Harry wanted to hug him.

“Why on earth would he want to do that?” John asked.

“The Death Eaters are trying to bring Voldemort back, the Wizarding world is in chaos because he’s missing,” Sirius motioned to Harry, “and they all think he’s dead.”

“And we care about this, why?” John asked, just as there was a pop in the living room. Sirius had his wand out and so did Sam and Harry. John cocked his shotgun and Nana’s voice rang out from the other side of the kitchen door.

“John Winchester, if you so much as think about pulling that trigger I’ll make sure all of the shot goes right straight back at you.”

Dad un-cocked the gun and set it behind the door. Holding it open for Nana, he even put up with getting smacked with one of the socks she was carrying as she came through. Stopping, she looked at Sirius and said something in Crow, Harry thought, and Sirius was bound to the chair. “Sirius Black.” Nana Bishee spit the name out like it was poison on her tongue.

“Nana,” Harry tried to intervene. He had managed to keep Dad from killing Sirius, but now it seemed he had to stop Nana. “He’s my godfather.”

“I know,” Nana said coldly. “That makes the betrayal that much worse.”

“No, it was Pettigrew,” Harry said and Nana’s gaze fell on him. “I saw him, a rat-like man. Tom called him Pettigrew.”

Nana sat down in a chair across from Sirius. “You mentioned him before but I thought you must be mistaken. Pettigrew was dead . . .” Nana said and then it was like a light bulb went off. “He cut off his own finger.”

Sirius nodded, as there wasn’t much more he could do. “He spent the next fifteen years as a rat. He was a companion to the Weasley children. I saw him on the front page of the Prophet a month or so ago and I knew what had happened.”

Harry had a bad feeling where this was going and he tried to get Sirius to shut up. But of course he didn’t. Harry put his head in his hands.

“I found out that Harry was missing and presumed dead. I didn’t believe it and did a point me and here I am.”

“Impossible,” Nana said. “John, leave the gun.” She didn’t even turn around to see if Dad had stepped away from the gun that he had just taken a step towards. “There is no way a point me should have worked with . . . did you do Harry Potter or just Harry?” She looked at Sirius through narrowed eyes.

“Harry,” Sirius said. “I knew him when he was a baby. I loved him, and I just used that.”

Nana nodded absentmindedly. “Let me think,” she said and Harry, Sam, and Dean settled back, like they had been taught. “Tom’s back. They found Harry. You found Harry.” Nana’s eyes narrowed at Sirius. “You led them here.”

“I didn’t know,” Sirius said and Harry felt the hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck raise up. There was danger here. Sam grabbed his hand and it was like lightning had struck him. All of a sudden he was full of power and so was Sam. They were feeding off each other. Harry started to panic and pull out of Sam’s grasp but Sam held on tighter and then Dean was there. Murmuring to the both of them, talking quietly about grounding and letting go. Then, as suddenly as it came, the power left him and Sam. Harry collapsed on the floor, dragging Sam down with him.

Harry came around with a cool cloth on his forehead and Sam’s hand still grasped in his. They were side by side in Harry’s bed, Harry’s glasses were beside him on the table. He could hear Dad, Nana and Sirius talking, not arguing, in another part of the house. After taking stock of himself, Harry looked around and saw Dean sitting at the foot of the bed, his hands wrapped around one of his and one of Sam’s ankles. Looking over at Sam, Harry saw his eyes were open, too. They stared at one another for a long time, then Sam brought his fingers up and brushed them across Harry’s scar.

Noticing that they were awake, Dean crawled up onto the bed behind Harry. He wrapped his arms around him and slid his fingers between Sam’s. Sam moved closer and almost before Harry knew it they were entwined with each other so much that an outside observer couldn’t have said where one boy ended and the next began. Harry relaxed into his brothers’ warm embrace and fell asleep.

 ** _Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are mere oscillation between flight and longing_** ~Herman Broch  
Early October 1997  
Dean is 18  
Harry is 17  
Sam is 15

 

Dean watched Harry and Sam with a kind of amusement. It was pretty much the only form of entertainment that he had up here in this cabin. Dad had gotten word about a gun. A gun he said could kill anything. Anything was a whole lot of stuff in Dean’s book; vampires, werewolves, demons and ghosts and innumerable other things that he had been hunting with his dad. So, Dad had parked them here, in Southern Oregon, while he went looking for the gun.

Understanding why Dad did it didn’t make it easier to deal with. Dean would give anything to protect his family. Looking back out the window, Dean watched as Sam and Harry used magic to rake the leaves into piles and then explode them. It scared the crap out of the squirrels; Dean could see about five of them, chittering at the boys from here. Dad had pulled them out of school but both Sam and Harry were good at bookwork so they would be able to catch up again, soon enough. He had gotten certified to watch Sam and Harry practice. Apparently because he had taken an oath to protect Sam and Harry it gave him a special status in the magical world. Dean had managed to somehow graduate last June and he had been hunting with Dad fairly solid since then, except for one month in the summer that he had spent at Nana Bishee’s with Sam and Harry.

Harry and him had messed around a few more times but opportunities were few and very far between. Dean knew what he felt for Harry wasn’t right but Harry had tried to convince him it was okay. His eyes tracked his brothers as they ran in and out of exploding piles of colorful leaves. But no matter what, he knew what he felt for Sam was wrong. The two boys had come back from Nana Bishee’s closer than ever and Dean sometimes wondered if something had happened between the two of them.

However, on days like today, it was like the fox and the rabbit with one stalking the other. Dean could feel the tension in the air almost like a storm cloud on the horizon. Knowing that something would either be happening between the two of them soon or Harry would come and seek him out, made Dean wonder which would happen. He knew what he wanted to happen. Both Harry and Sam had a rough life so far and Dean, at this point, was all for grabbing happiness while he could. They would be good for each other, Dean thought. Sure the hell better than he was, for either of them.

Enough with the moping, Dean thought, and stood. Walking to the front door, he pushed it open. Yelling out brought both Harry and Sam’s attention to him and Dean motioned them both into the house. After washing up, everyone sat down at the table.

“Dad call today?” Sam asked.

“No, and I told you he was going to be out of range for a while,” Dean told him as he sat dinner down on the table. Roast with carrots and potatoes. There might have been more carrots and potatoes than roast but meat was expensive and he hadn’t had a chance to go out hunting yet. Sam and Harry both ate like it was going out of style, Dean too if he was honest, but he could count the ribs on both Harry and Sammy and it hurt him. They might be growing like weeds but they were his responsibility.

“When can we get back to school?” Harry asked and Dean wanted to pound his head on the table.

“I don’t know.” He tried not to snap but from the hurt look on Harry’s face, he hadn’t succeeded. “Come on,” Dean said as they all scraped their plates clean, “I’ll do dishes and you guys put the wards up. Not so sensitive this time, Sammy. They went off last night every time a squirrel went across them.”

Sam shared a look with Harry and they both laughed. Dean suspected that Sam had done it on purpose. He urged them outside so he could clean up. If they wanted to, they could’ve got the dishes done with magic before they went outside but Dean liked doing the dishes; it gave him time to think and plan.

Three weeks later and there was still no word from Dad. They had gotten a call from Uncle Bobby saying that Dad was on to something and they needed to stay put. Dean sighed. As best as he could tell, Sam and Harry still hadn’t done anything and Dean was ready to shoot someone. Sam and Harry shared a look that should have caught the room on fire and Dean wondered if he and Harry had been so oblivious to everything else around them.

Dean had a plan. He just hoped it would work. The way Sam and Harry were dancing around each other, he didn’t think it would take much to push them into bed together. “Sam,” Dean said after dinner. “Nana said you were to work on relaxation and you are as tense as a coiled spring. Harry, didn’t she show you some kind of massage that would open blocked magic channels or something?” Dean knew full well that she had; she had taught all of them the technique because there might come a time when their bodies was all they had left.

Sam tensed and Dean poked him. “See what I mean? I’m going to go out and see if I can scare us up some pheasant or, if we’re lucky, a deer.” Dean stood and, ignoring the looks that passed between Sam and Harry, got the gun and his hunting pack. “Back later, don’t wait up.” Dean walked out the door, across the yard and into the field beyond.

Getting out of sight of the house, he sat down and concentrated on Harry and Sam. Nana Bishee had taught him that as their guardian he had access to some of the magic that flowed around the two boys. If he concentrated in just the right way he could know what they were doing. It wasn’t like mind reading or even like he was a fly on the wall, it was more a general sort of knowledge. What condition they were in and if they were feeling strong emotions like fear or, in this case, lust.

Focusing in on Harry’s and Sam’s feelings was easy; interpreting them was a bit more difficult. Dean could tell Harry was upset and so was Sam, but gradually Sam’s changed to longing and lust. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine what was going on in the house behind him.

Sam, following his direction, would go and lie down on the couch before Harry suggested his bed would be more comfortable. Sam would sigh, because that’s all Sam did anymore, while getting up and then wander into his room. Harry would suggest that Sam remove his shirt, as it would make the massage that much easier. Sam might sigh again but there would be no reluctance to shed his shirt and perhaps unbutton his jeans, to get comfortable before he lay down. Dean did not let his mind dwell on the thought of Sammy splayed out on a bed in front of him.

He knew the moment that Harry put his hands on Sam because Sam’s feelings went through the roof. Dean lay back, cushioning his head with his pack, and unbuttoned his tight jeans. Rubbing at his hard cock through his underwear, he concentrated on what Sam and Harry were feeling. Harry would be rubbing Sam’s back and then the temptation to taste would be too much for him. Leaning down, he would press his lips into the curve of Sam’s spine.

Strong spikes of desire from Sam told Dean he was close if not right on the money about what was going on. Dean slid his hand inside his underwear and wrapped it around his cock. Slowly running it up and down, he concentrated on Harry and Sam again.

They must be kissing, Dean thought, from the emotions he was getting from both boys. Knowing from experience how good of a kisser Harry was, he wondered what Sam thought. Getting close to coming and knowing that Sam and Harry were almost there too was exciting. Then, as he gripped a little tighter around his hard cock, Sam and Harry came almost at the same time and it pushed Dean over the edge. It was like there was an explosion behind his eyes and he was _with_ Harry and Sam.

They lay panting, Harry on top of Sam, his hand wrapped around both of their cocks now sticky with come. Sam opened his eyes and Dean had a double vision of Harry looking down at Sam and Sam looking up at Harry. They looked confused for a moment, then together they both said, “Dean?” and Dean was back in his own body, laying in the grass with his own hand covered with come. Fuck.

Standing up, Dean buttoned his pants. Wiping his hand on his jeans, he grabbed the pack and the gun and started walking towards the woods, away from Sam and Harry. He wasn’t thinking, not really. It was just he had said he was hunting and so he should be doing it, not jerking off to his brothers getting it on together. Faintly behind him he heard Harry holler his name but he kept walking. They needed food, they did. Never mind that he wasn’t in the right mind to go hunting.

He knew that Harry and Sam were back at the house talking about using their magic to find him, or come after him. Stopping for a moment, he used what control he had left and pushed a ‘no’ at them. He must have still had more of a connection than he wanted when he felt both Sam and Harry physically fall down. Pulling himself as together as he could, he slowed down, started paying attention to what was going on around him.

He was on the edge of the forest about a half a mile from the house and in the best position to try to get a deer. There was a salt lick nearby that Dad had pointed out to him before he left. Dean smothered feelings of annoyance at Dad and tried to calm himself so he could hunt. Slowing down, he started to walk softly and quietly, like Nana had shown him. He found a tree with a good view of the field and the verge with the salt lick. Leaning back, he rested the gun against his shoulder.

A doe stepped out with a fawn that was too young. If the winter was a hard one it was going to die. Dean let the doe and fawn eat then leave; Sam, Harry and him weren’t starving yet. Then he might consider taking a doe with young, but he wasn’t even sure of that. A young buck stepped into the dappled light, just as Dean was getting ready to pack up. A three point’er; not that big, but then they didn’t need big. They needed meat. Dean raised his gun and, picking a spot just behind the front leg, he pulled the trigger.

The deer reacted to the sound of the shot too late and got only a step before he collapsed. Dean raised the gun again as he walked up to the downed deer, ready to shoot it in the head if he needed to. It turned out to be unnecessary and he had killed it with his first shot. He had work to do before he could take the meat back.

He said thank you to the deer and the deer’s sprit as he had been taught by Nana, even if he thought it was stupid, before he grabbed a rope out of his pack. He tied it around the deer’s back feet and found a nearby branch to throw the rope over. He hauled the deer up by its feet and stopped when the carcass was off the ground.

Skinning and dressing the deer took longer than he expected; it was nearly dark when he was done. He wrapped the meat in some bags he had and the skin in a tarp he had in his pack and tied it all up so he could carry it. If he wanted it to be easy he only had to call to Sam or Harry and they would both be there in an instant, but this was something that Dean was proud he could do on his own.

He worked himself hard so that he wouldn’t remember how he had jacked off to the thought of Harry doing something to Sammy that he wanted to do so badly. It was wrong. He was just fucked up more than most people.

Heading back, he adjusted the pack on his back and slung the rifle over his shoulder. It was really late in the season but if he was lucky he would find some greens or maybe some late apples to cook with the meat. He saw that the moon was rising. He found some Chinquapin bushes that weren’t completely picked over. He grabbed a few handfuls of nuts and when he found an old apple tree, he pulled a bag out of his pocket; the fallen apples and nuts went into it. He really wanted some greens and while they were far enough south that the frost hadn’t yet set in, most of what was edible was already picked over.

He lucked out and near the apple tree was an old herb garden got wild. Gathering thyme and sage, he nearly cheered when he saw some lamb’s quarter and some chickweed. They would cook up like spinach and give all of them some much needed vitamins. Dean laughed as he crossed the wards, whomever had set them up had done a good job.

Sam met him at the door. He didn’t say anything, just looked at him.

“I need to do something with this meat,” Dean said. “Anyone hungry?” Harry’s stomach rumbled and they all laughed. It was kind of strained but it was laughter all the same. Handing Sam the bag with the greens, nuts, and apples in it, he told him to turn the oven on and roast the nuts.

Heading around back of the house, Dean found a good place to lay out the skin and the meat. “You know, we would have come and helped you,” Harry said, nearly startling him.

“I know,” Dean said, getting his knife out.

“Is this about earlier?” Harry asked, obviously not picking up on Dean’s ‘leave me alone’ vibe.

“No.” He cut a good size roast from the hindquarters. Setting it to the side, he sat back and looked up at Harry. “You wanna help?”

When Harry nodded, Dean motioned to the meat in front of him. With a few deft flicks of his wand, Harry had most of the meat off the bones and wrapped in the sealable plastic bags from the house. Dean stood, gathering the smaller bones for stew and soup and taking everything inside. When he came back out, Harry had hung the skin high out of reach of predators and banished the larger bones.

“Thanks,” he said.

“We wouldn’t mind if you joined us,” Harry said and Dean looked him in the eyes.

“What?”

“Well, you were looking in on us, so we talked about it and decided that if you wanted to, we would love it if you joined us in person.” Harry explained calmly like he wasn’t discussing Dean having sex with Harry and Sam.

“I was just checking on you two, that was all,” Dean snapped and turned to go inside.

Harry threw the parting shot. “Lie to yourself then.” Dean paused with his hand on the door before turning the handle and walking in. He heard Harry sigh behind him.

Sam was pulling the nuts from the oven, the toasted smell filling the kitchen. Dean grunted his approval as he moved to put a skillet on the stove. Turning the oven up, he got out the roasting pan. Onions, apples, carrots all went in and the roast was browned in the skillet before he put it in the pan. Covering it, he put pan in the oven.

Meanwhile, Sam had found the lamb’s quarter and the chickweed. Making a face, he none the less took it to the sink to wash. It would go on just before the roast was done and they had an hour or so. Sam still hadn’t spoken to him when Dean sat down and started chopping the nuts as Sam shelled them.

“We were worried.” Sam spoke to the bowl in his lap and not to Dean.

“I’m a big boy. I’m fine.”

“But . . . I felt . . . we felt . . . You were with us. You know.” It was mostly accusation.

“I was just checking on you and got caught up. It won’t happen again,” Dean said. “It’s okay,” he added a little more gently, remembering the horrible guilt he felt after being with Harry.

Sam slammed the bowl down on the table. “It’s not me that has a problem,” he said and got up.

“Sammy,” Dean said.

“Don’t.” Sam stood up and the chair clattered to the floor with a bang. Dean flinched. “Don’t treat me like I’m a little kid who doesn’t know what he wants. I know, Dean.”

Dean shook his head and Sam slammed out of the house. Harry came in, setting the chair up before clapping and Dean turned away from him. “Well done,” Harry said.

“Don’t you start,” Dean said.

“You know I was as old as him the first time we . . .” Harry started before Dean interrupted him with a voice full of guilt.

“I know.”

“Dean,” Harry said quietly. “Do you think I was wrong? That I shouldn’t have? Is that the problem?”

“No, no.” Dean sighed and got up to check on the roast, avoiding looking at Harry. “I wanted . . . you both needed . . .” He couldn’t finish a sentence.

Harry was standing right behind him when he stood up. “What did we need, Dean? A fuck?”

Dean’s breath caught. He hadn’t been this close to Harry in a while. The memory of what Harry and Sam had been doing came to him in a flash and he was instantly hard. God, why did everything have to be so screwed up?

Raising his hand, Harry touched Dean’s face. “It doesn’t have to be,” he said and Dean, realizing he had spoken out loud, snorted.

“For you,” Dean replied quietly.

“What do you think of me? That I’m some kind of slut just jumping from bed to bed, not caring? This is important to me. You are important. Sam is important. Gah!” Harry backed off and ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

Dean went to wash some of the dishes and make sure the greens were ready to go on the stove in a while. Harry, taking a last look at Dean, walked out the door after Sam.

Gathering the ground nuts, Dean mixed up some biscuits and tossed the nuts in the batter; they would cook while the roast was setting. Finally there was nothing else to do, and Dean went and sat at the table. He wasn’t used to being terribly introspective; he tended to look outwards instead of inwards because he was always disappointed with himself. He was weak. He needed to be strong. Strong to protect Harry and Sam and strong enough to give up what he wanted for what was best.

Dean sat, lost in thought for a while, before he shook himself out of his reverie. The meat had been a tender cut, so he didn’t need to cook it for that long. Checking the roast, he figured he had a few minutes so he tore the greens up and put them in a pan with a little salt and a little water. Setting the pan on to boil, he pulled the roast out and checked the temperature. One hundred and thirty degrees, perfect. He took the roast out of the pan and set it on the cutting board. He would let it sit while he cooked the biscuits.

Feeling the wards go off, he looked outside and didn’t see anyone or hear a vehicle. Shrugging, he just figured it was again extra sensitive. He was just pulling the biscuits out of the oven when Sam and Harry came in the door. “Wash up,” Dean said and Harry cleared his throat. Dean looked up and saw a ranger. Oh fuck.

Putting the biscuits down, he wiped his hands on his pants before holding one out to the ranger. “Can we help you, Ranger . . .?”

“Jackson,” the man offered, which Dean found promising.

“Ranger Jackson,” Dean said.

“Your folks around?”

Dean shook his head. “Mom’s dead, Dad drives truck. We came up here for a little vacation but Dad got called into work.” Dean used the normal excuse. Glancing up, he saw Harry with his wand out, pointing at the man. Dean shook his head. No magic unless they couldn’t avoid it.

The ranger flipped a book open. “There was a deer taken about a mile over yonder as the crow flies and I was just wondering if you boys have seen anyone lurking about?”

Dean pointedly didn’t look at the roast on the counter. “No sir,” he said. “Been having problems?”

Ranger Jackson seemed to consider his question. “Not so as you say, no.”

Dean knew an evasion when he heard one. “Do I need to keep a closer eye on my brothers, sir?” Dean ignored the sounds that Harry and Sam made.

Jackson nodded. “Some hikers went missing just over the ridge from here.” He pointed in the opposite direction that Dean had been.

“Did you want me to send my Dad down to the Ranger station when he gets here?” Dean asked.

“Nah, just make sure you tell him to keep an eye out. If . . .” here it comes, thought Dean, “you give me some of that wonderful roast I smell.”

Dean sighed. It was better than he had hoped. At least he didn’t need to try and pedal his ass to this guy. He had done it before to keep Sam and Harry safe but he had never had to do it in front of them and he was glad he didn’t have to this time. Motioning Sam and Harry to sit down, he put the greens and the biscuits on the table. Slicing the roast, he put it and some of the carrots and onions on the serving platter.

They ate, the ranger getting most of the meat but he didn’t seem to want the greens, which made Dean extraordinarily grateful. Afterwards, Dean walked the man outside, around the side of the house that didn’t have a deer skin hanging near it. Dean was hoping it had been dark enough when the guy had showed up that he hadn’t seen it.

“You boys seem to be in a little trouble,” Jackson said and Dean flinched on the inside.

“No sir, we’re good.”

“Poaching’s against the law,” he said and Dean’s stomach fell to his shoes.

“Yes, sir, it is,” Dean said, still trying to bluff his way out of this mess.

“I might forget I saw you all here with your deerskin hanging in the tree if . . .” The man’s voice lowered.

“If?” Dean asked, some part of him hopeful that this could be solved some other way than what he was thinking.

“You give me a taste of that sweet ass of yours. You were wagging it around at me like you wanted something.” He reached down and grabbed his cock.

“Fine,” Dean said quickly, wanting nothing more than for this guy to leave. “But not here. My brothers wouldn’t understand.”

The man grinned in victory. “My truck is just round the bend there.” He pointed down the driveway. “Meet me there in five minutes or I leave and come back with the sheriff. I think those brothers of yours could end up in foster homes.”

Dean nodded abruptly. The guy didn’t have to go and threaten Sam and Harry. Turning away, he walked back into the house, hoping his acting skills were up to the test.

Sam stood just inside the doorway, staring at him. “I got to go and see if I can’t help Ranger Jackson spot the poacher.” Dean sighed like he was being put upon. “Take the damn skin down while I’m gone, and both of you stay here.”

Harry started to say something but Sam shook his head and he stopped. Dean grabbed condoms and some lube from his bedside table. The condom was a no brainer and hopefully the guy would use some lube. He shoved the stuff in his jacket pocket before putting it on and heading out the door.

His stomach was twisting in knots as he walked down the drive. Giving a rock a kick, he looked back at the house and couldn’t see the skin or the boys. That was a relief, anyway. He stepped up to the guy’s truck and the passenger door was pushed open. Dean climbed in.

The ranger grinned at him, his cock already out and hard Dean saw by the interior light. Dean repressed a sigh and leaned down to give the guy head. Maybe he’d be satisfied with that. It wasn’t long before the guy was coming, bitter tasting in his mouth. Harry never tasted bad; this guy was horrid. Dean swallowed and prayed it would stay down.

Shoving his hands down Dean’s pants, the guy started rubbing Dean’s cock. It always humiliated him how his body would just react to things. Like a strange man’s hands on his cock. “Get these jean’s off, boy. I want a piece of that ass,” the ranger said. Dean was kind of surprised that the ranger had gotten halfway hard again. Then again it probably wasn’t that often he got to have what he wanted now.

Dean shimmied out of his pants and underwear, leaving them in a bunch on the floor. He snagged the condom and lube. Handing them to the ranger, he was relieved to see him put on the condom but he tossed the lube out the window and told Dean to put his ass in the air. Flinching at the thought of being taken dry, he propped himself up on the seat. He could feel the guy’s eyes roving over his ass before he reached out and touched Dean. Dean whimpered at the thought of the pain to come.

Then the truck door was pulled open in front of him and for one horrifying moment Dean thought it was Dad. It was Sam with his wand out. “Get off of my brother,” Sam said and Dean was a bit impressed with just how much threat he had in his voice.

“Or what, boy? You gonna poke me with your stick?”

If Dean hadn’t been in such an embarrassing position, he would have enjoyed the guy getting hit with a sleep charm. As it was, he was now laying underneath an unconscious ranger.

“Damn it, Sam, I was handling it.”

“Yeah, we saw that,” Harry said as he opened the other door and dragged the guy off of Dean. “What . . . why?” Harry couldn’t seem to figure out how to phrase his question.

“It’s my job to take care of you,” Dean said, snagging his pants off the floor of the truck before getting out and putting them on.

“You take care of us by fucking some random guy and not me?” Sam asked angrily.

“No. Yes. Fuck, Sam. What kind of question is that?”

“A valid one, going off of what we just saw,” Harry said, pushing the ranger over so he could do up his pants. Dean watched as Harry cast a memory charm on the guy and then revived him.

“Wow! You’re lucky you didn’t crash,” Harry said, wide-eyed. “It was a good thing you stopped. Thanks for all your help, Ranger Jackson. We’ll call you if we see any sign of that poacher again.” Dean watched as the guy fell for Harry’s wide-eyed and innocent look.

Ranger Jackson stared at Harry for a moment before shaking his head. “Sure, no problem, kid,” he said, putting his hand up to his head. He looked at Sam and Dean with no recognition in his eyes. Dean nodded at the guy before they turned to go back to the cabin. Listening for the ranger to drive off, Dean turned to Harry and Sam after they were sure he was gone.

He was embarrassed, which made him livid. “What the fuck is wrong with you both? You want to have your wands broken? I was dealing with it.”

“What the fuck is wrong with us?” Sam asked, getting in Dean’s face. “You can stand there and ask me that? It’s not okay. Not even close. How many times?”

Dean stood there surprised as hell at Sam’s anger. “We were taught not to use magic around those who can’t. Nana told me, told us, to figure out another way.”

“But, Dean,” Harry spoke up, “self defense is permitted and defending our guardian.”

Dean’s head snapped around and he glared at Harry.

“Well, it is,” Harry said. “You need to be here to protect us. We get to protect you, too.”

“I’m the oldest. I’m the guardian. I should protect you. I was doing that.” Now he knew he just sounded petulant but, damn it, it wasn’t their decision to make.

Sam looked so sad that Dean wanted to go to him. Harry stepped up and wrapped an arm around Sam’s waist. “But what if something happened to you?” Sam asked the ground because he wasn’t looking at Dean. “What would we do then? I need you. We need you.” There were tears in Sam’s voice.

Sam didn’t wait for Dean to answer him. He just turned and headed back for the house. Harry looked at Dean for a long moment, an unreadable expression on his face.

“You . . . fuck it,” Harry said and turned to follow Sam.

Dean didn’t see what he’d done that was so bad. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been protecting Sammy his entire life or Harry, too, since they had met. What the hell did they expect him to do? The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. He stomped back to the house, letting the door slam behind him as he looked for Sam and Harry.

Sam was standing at the sink rinsing and Harry was washing the dishes. “Listen,” Dean said.

Sam dropped the fork he was rinsing into the sink with a clatter. “Don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say,” Sam snapped.

“Fine, fuck you anyway,” Dean said, swallowing his apology. He walked to his room and slammed the door. He felt juvenile, but it made things a little better. He calmed himself down just as there was a knock on his door.

“Yeah,” he called out.

Sam cracked the door open. “Wards are up.” Dean was surprised when Sam came in and shut the door behind him. “How many times?”

Dean didn’t have to ask what Sam was asking about. “A few,” he said reluctantly.

“Why?”

Why what? Dean wondered. He just looked at Sam.

“Why them?”

Dean sighed. “Because.”

“Why not me?”

Great, now he was confusing sex with love. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t . . . I never . . . it wasn’t like I wanted to,” he finally said, hoping like hell Sam would understand him.

Sam moved closer, getting in Dean’s space. “So you want to? With me?”

Damn. Sam understood too well. Dean looked into Sam’s eyes, read the pain and longing there, and it nearly broke him. Raising his hand, he brushed his fingers along Sam’s jaw. Sam’s eyes closed as Dean’s thumb passed over his lips. Leaning in, Dean pressed his lips to Sam’s, kissing him gently. Sam parted his lips and Dean dipped his tongue for a taste before pulling back.

Sam’s eyes flickered open. Dean could see the question in them, the same question he had asked before. Did Dean want to be with him? Dean wished more than anything that he didn’t, that he could make his feelings go away, that he could be normal. Dean’s hand shook as he slid it into Sam’s hair and pulled him close again for another kiss.

Groaning, Sam leaned into him and Dean became aware of his hard on that was pressing against his brother. Reaching down, Dean rubbed his hand against Sam’s dick through his jeans. Sam popped the top button on his pants and Dean shoved his hand down them. Wrapping his hand around Sam’s cock, Dean felt like he was having an out-of-body experience.

“Dean,” Sam moaned and Dean jerked him off a little harder.

Sam’s sweaty forehead pressed against Dean’s neck and Dean squeezed Sam’s cock just as the wards went off.

“Fuck, Dad,” Dean said, recognizing the particular alarm they had for dad, and started to pull back from Sam.

“Please,” Sam begged and held onto Dean’s arm. Knowing that with every moment that passed Dad was that much closer to them, Dean pressed Sam against the wall, capturing his lips as his hand stroked Sam’s cock, determined to get him off before Dad caught them.

Sam whimpered and Dean knew he was close.

“Come on, Sammy, come for me,” Dean whispered in his ear and Sam’s hips jerked forward and he was coming. Thick white strands of goo splattered Sam and Dean’s shirt and hand. Dean kissed him again. “That’s my boy,” he said against Sam’s mouth and Sam pushed him off.

“Dean, it's Sam” he whined.

“Come on, clean us up.” Dean motioned to the mess on his shirt. Sam gave him a half grin and, holding up Dean’s hand, he sucked a finger into his mouth. Dean groaned.

“Damn it,” Dean said and handed Sam his wand. He adjusted his hard on in his pants as Sam did a cleaning spell over the both of them.

“Boys?” Dad yelled as he slammed the door on the truck having left the Impala for Dean to go to town with.

Dean let Sam go greet their father while he thought of disgusting things to make his hard on go away.

 ** _Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions_** ~Author Unknown  
Mid-March 1998  
Dean is 19  
Harry is 17  
Sam is 15

Sam was so angry he was seeing spots. He slammed out the door of the latest rental they were staying at and started to walk. Knowing he was so close to losing control, he could feel his magic trying to get out. He walked for a good half an hour before heading back to the house, still feeling angry and out of control.

“Sam?” Harry walked out the door after spotting him, closing it softer than Sam had.

“Damn it, it’s not fair!” Sam whirled and yelled at Harry.

“It’s my life, Sam.”

“But . . . but,” Sam sputtered. “Don’t you want more than this? College. You’ve got a full ride, a fucking full ride, and you want to just throw it away? You . . .”

“Me, Sam. I know what I want and it doesn’t include college. That’s your dream, little brother.” Harry pushed a strand of hair that was hanging in Sam’s face behind his ear. “And why were you opening my mail, anyway?”

He shrugged. “It was from a college and said Winchester. I sent out a thing at school asking about more information. I thought that was it.” Sam didn’t say how panicked he felt when he saw it, wondering if Dad or Dean had seen it first. But he didn’t let himself get distracted. “Don’t you want more?” Sam asked Harry again.

“Yeah, I do. I want to be able to live without wondering if someone is going to come and try to take me again. You heard all the stories about what happened the last time Voldemort gained power,” Harry said, sounding a bit exasperated.

Sam put his hand up to cover Harry’s mouth. They had been told about saying that name in particular. Sam’s eyes flicked up to Harry’s scar and back to meet his eyes.

Harry pulled Sam’s hand away. “Dad and Dean understand. Can’t you try?” He squinted like he was suddenly standing in bright light his eyes narrowing behind his glasses.

 _Oh shit,_ thought Sam. “Not supposed to say the name,” Sam spoke quietly as he held Harry up from collapsing. Nana Bishee had told them that Harry was connected to that asshole through his scar and saying his name was just about like waving a red flag in front of a bull. It got his attention. Damn it! They weren’t that far from the house so Sam tried to help Harry back to it. Harry’s hand was pressed against his forehead and he was muttering to himself.

Making it to the yard, Sam called out to Dean, not understanding why he hadn’t come out already. The bond should have been tugging at him. Dad was the one who came outside and found them. Harry curled up in pain and Sam trying to help him up. As Dad lifted Harry, Sam saw that his scar was bleeding just like when they first met.

Getting to his feet, he scrambled in after Dad.

“Dean!” Dad was yelling as Sam shut the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harry flinch.

Sam looked up just as Dean came stumbling out of his bedroom, his bloodshot eyes widening before he seemed to focus on Harry. Dean took Harry from Dad and moved him onto the couch. Sam could smell the alcohol on Dean’s breath and it answered Sam’s question about where he’d been.

Harry leaned into Dean’s hand on his forehead and Sam looked over at Dad and decided that now was a good time to run interference. Sam was aware that Dad knew Dean had been drinking but not why.

“Come on, Dean can take care of him. I’ll tell you what happened,” Sam offered up information knowing that his Dad would take him up on it.

Sam puttered as much as he could, straightening the kitchen and making some fresh coffee, but he finally sat down in front of John and explained exactly what had happened.

“That guy is going to need seen to, sooner rather than later,” Dad growled after Sam mentioned Voldemort. Sam nodded sharply; he couldn’t agree more. Running a hand through his hair, Dad seemed to make a decision.

“You boys need to go and stay with Bobby for a while. I need to take Dean to see someone.”

Sam wanted to protest. Dean was his. However, the look on his father’s face brooked no argument. Sam sighed and nodded, knowing he had hoped in vain that Dad hadn’t noticed just how drunk Dean was. Maybe Harry knew a way they could keep tabs on Dean.

Dean was leaning against the doorframe when Sam looked up. Wondering for the millionth time what was going on inside Dean’s head, Sam just looked back down at the coffee cup in his hands. Getting up, Sam poured Dean a cup before he handed it over as he passed. He gave Dean a look that told him they’d be talking later.

Sam heard Dean move to sit with Dad and Dad start talking low and in his most persuasive voice. It startled Sam because Dad _never_ tried to persuade them. It was always – do this – do that – don’t ask questions – don’t hesitate. Sam got so sick of it sometimes, but Dad was asking . . . asking Dean something. Shaking his head in disbelief, he went to check on Harry.

Walking into the darkened room, Sam looked at Harry. He lay on the couch, his eyes closed and his face tight with pain. Sam knelt beside him, touching his hand lightly. Harry cracked his eyes open and gave Sam a small smile.

“Is Dean okay?”

Sam nodded. “He’s been drinking,” he added.

Harry winced and Sam glanced at his scar. Suddenly, when he looked at Sam his eyes were red. Holding still, Sam hollered for his dad. This time, Harry didn’t flinch at all. His red eyes were fixed on Sam. “Sam Winchester,” said Harry who didn’t sound at all like Harry.

“Dad,” Sam yelled again.

“Shit.” Sam heard his dad cuss behind him. “Hold on, Sam, Harry,” Dad said and left.

Dean skidded into the room after Dad was gone. “Sam?”

Sam still wouldn’t or couldn’t break eye contact with Harry. “It’s not him,” Sam stated matter-of-factly. Harry looked at Dean and Sam suddenly felt like he could breathe again.

Harry said, “Triad,” in a sibilant voice that was nothing like Harry. The red eyes focused back on Sam and he could feel him trying to get into his mind. It was like tentacles were wrapped around his brain, slowly squeezing.

Dad slammed back into the room and the eyes moved to look at him. Dean was there, pressing his hand into the middle of Sam’s back. Sam could feel the sweat almost dripping off him, his back damp under Dean’s hand. Harry blinked and blinked again, the red leaving his eyes as Dad started to chant at him in Latin.

Harry collapsed; Sam would have, too, except for Dean. They watched as Dad checked on Harry, and then finished the exorcism. Although, if he had asked Sam, Sam could have told him that whatever had been in Harry was long gone. Harry lifted his head and Sam wanted nothing more than to go to him and comfort him but Dad was there.

Reaching out, Sam brushed his fingers against Harry’s and he found his hand gripped in Harry’s firm grasp. Dean stood there for a moment, his hands touching each of them.

“Dean,” Dad snapped out. Dean let his hands drop and, turning, he left the room, following Dad back to the kitchen. Sam felt the loss immediately.

Sam stared at Harry. He cocked a half smile.

“I know, I’m not supposed to say his name,” Harry told him.

Sam let out a relived huff and then he moved in close, his lips nearly pressed up against Harry’s. He kissed Harry gently until Harry reached up and wrapped his long fingers in Sam’s hair and pulled him closer. The kiss became rough, almost violent, as they both needed some kind of reassurance Sam could feel Harry’s glasses digging into his face. Finally Harry pulled back and Sam leaned his forehead against Harry’s. They rested there, just breathing each other’s air and then Sam pushed himself up, getting to his feet. He looked between the kitchen and the couch.

There was a brief look of fear that crossed Harry’s face and Sam decided to stay where he was. He moved and lifted Harry’s legs so that when he sat they would drape across his lap. Realizing he felt disjointed and that he had been all evening, he brushed his hand over Harry’s ankle.

“Why are you so angry?” Harry asked. Sam hadn’t really thought about why he was getting mad all the time.

“It’s everything, I guess. When I go to school and see people leading normal lives . . . sometimes I just want that so bad I can taste it. But I wouldn’t . . . sometimes I don’t want to be different.” Sam looked up into Harry’s eyes. “I . . .” his voice trailed off as he saw a look of pain cross Harry’s face. “Is it?” he asked, his eyes glancing at Harry’s scar.

“No, not him.” Harry spoke quietly, reassuring Sam that it wasn’t Voldemort. “I guess I wanted to be special,” he admitted. “The Dursleys always told me what crap I was and I guess I always wanted to be better than they thought. Different is okay with me.”

Sam stroked Harry’s ankle. “I didn’t mean . . .”

“I know,” Harry said. “I just want you to understand why I’m not so worried about college. There is so much evil that only we can deal with,” Harry looked up and his green eyes flashed in the light of the table lamp the light reflecting off of his glasses, “that I cannot just look the other way.”

Now Sam felt like utter crap. He looked down at the legs sprawled across his lap.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t have dreams. It’s not that I don’t sometimes wish things were different but if they were . . . if my parents lived, if your mom lived, then we would have never met. You would probably be going to school in Salem. Dean, who the hell knows. And me, I would be at Hogwarts. I would never know you or Dad or Dean and . . .” Harry’s voice trailed off and Sam glanced up at him. He was staring at the doorway. Sam looked over and saw Dad standing there, listening.

“And . . .” Dad prompted him.

“I wouldn’t want that,” Harry said. “You are my family.”

Dad nodded and Harry smiled. From Dad it was as good as a pat on the back, telling you you’d done a good job.

“And Winchesters take care of each other. Has this happened before?”

Harry didn’t even ask what. “No, sir, not like that.”

“But . . .”

“Sometimes I get flashes of anger or pleasure. Sometimes I have nightmares and he’s inside my dreams and it hurts; he hurts me. But Dean is there before it gets too bad.”

Dad changed the subject. “Why was Dean drinking?”

“Why don’t you ask me?” Dean said from behind their father. Their dad didn’t know about everything they did together and was he ever relieved that Dad didn’t. Sam knew that he was deflecting attention off of Harry and onto himself.

Dad moved aside and pointed Dean into the room. Sam watched as Dean stepped past Dad. “Okay, why were you drinking?”

“Because I was mad, Sam was mad, Harry was upset and it felt like I was going to explode.”

“Your mistake could have been much worse,” Dad said sounding disappointed and Sam winced.

“I know,” Dean replied, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Dad,” Sam tried to jump in and help Dean out. “It was me, too, not just Dean. I was the one who lost my temper first.”

“Yeah, what about that, Sam?” Dad said his name and it almost cracked the air like a whip.

Sam could feel his temper rising at just the tone in his father’s voice. “What the fuck do you care? You’re never here anyway.”

“Sam,” Harry whispered his name and grabbed his wrist, trying to soothe him. Sam looked at him and he could see the worry in Harry’s eyes.

“Sorry,” Sam said, trying not to sound petulant. “It’s just been rough.”

“Rough how?” Dad looked at Dean for an answer.

“Bills and stuff,” Dean said dismissively. Sam bristled again and Harry tugged on his arm, shaking his head.

Bills and stuff his ass. They had run out of money in the middle of the month. Dean’s part time job paid him on the fifth and the twentieth. There was about five days where they had nothing but pancakes because that was all there was. Dean was hardly eating so he and Harry could have more and Sam had to try hard to keep them down.

“Why didn’t you tell me I hadn’t left enough money?” Dad turned it around on Dean again. Sam bit his tongue so hard it was bleeding.

“We were making due, sir.”

Sam watched as Dad ran a hand through his hair. “Next time, tell me,” he said and Dean nodded.

“Get packed. You boys are going to stay with Bobby. Dean and me need to go and pick up something.”

“What about school?” Sam asked. “Harry is almost done, and you are just . . .”

“Damn it, Sam!” Dad was yelling again. “Just do what I tell you and go pack.”

Sam glared at his father and then he felt Harry brush his fingers across the back of his neck and he relaxed a little. “Fine,” he said and turned to look at Harry.

“Harry stays. I need to talk to him.” Dad didn’t sound mad about that at least. Sam looked at Dean, who shrugged and then followed him out.

Making it to his room, Sam let Dean in and then turned on him. “What the fuck?”

“Shh, Sam. If we concentrate we can figure out what they’re talking about,” Dean said quietly and sat down on his bed, scooting back so he was leaning against the wall. He crossed his legs and Sam scurried up beside him, both of them dropping into the light trance that Nana Bishee had taught them.

“Sam’s right,” Dad said. “What about school? It wouldn’t take much for you to graduate.”

“School can wait. This is important, more important than a piece of paper, sir,” Sam knew the sincerity behind Harry’s words even if he wanted to deny it. He could feel the truth. “Bishee said they were torturing Muggles, trying to terrify everyone. I’ve gotten a few copies of their paper from Sirius.” Harry paused as Dad growled about it.

“Anyway.” Sam couldn’t believe how Harry just spoke over the top of their father. “It seems to be working. Apparently the government is almost paralyzed and the Death Eaters are becoming more and more obvious. They closed the school after an attack on some Muggleborns. He needs to be stopped.”

“Fine, let them stop him.”

“Apparently there’s a prophesy about him and me. I need to figure out how to get rid of him for good.”

“We,” Dad said.

“What?”

“We need to figure out how to get rid of him. You are a part of this family.”

Sam knew Harry was smiling. “Yes, sir.”

“Go and pack. We need to get to Bobby’s as soon as we can. I need to find something that can help us, and he can keep you safe while we go after it,” Dad said, cryptic as always.

Sam dropped out of the trance as Harry left the room. Feeling the heat from Dean as he sprawled next to him, Sam took a chance and turned a bit. Dean was ahead of him for once and moved his arm so Sam could get in close.

“Sorry,” Sam breathed into Dean’s neck.

“I know. Me, too,” Dean replied.

Sam pulled back as Harry knocked on his door. Telling him to come in, Harry looked at the two of them. “We okay?”

“We’re okay,” Sam said and Harry looked at Dean. Dean nodded and Sam felt a wave of relief flow over him.

“Then pack,” Harry said.

“Fine,” Sam said with a smile and pulled out his duffel. “Magic?” Sam asked Dean.

“For shrinking not packing,” Dean told him as he stood up. “And not my stuff. Remember what happened last time.”

“’kay,” Sam said with a small smirk on his face. They had used a password and then Sam had ‘forgotten’ Dean’s and managed to keep from laughing in front of him as Dean grew more and more desperate, sounding like the queen in Rumpelstiltskin until he managed to say the right thing.

They packed and Sam, Dean and Harry were in the car following Dad in his truck down the road. Sam didn’t even look back. They had left so many places that he never bothered anymore.

Two days later, they pulled into Uncle Bobby’s junkyard. Sam and Harry grabbed their bags as Dean, Dad and Bobby talked. Narrowing his eyes at Dean, Sam passed by them on his way inside. Sam wasn’t happy that Dean was going to leave with Dad. Bobby was good but he wasn’t their guardian and with what had happened, Sam was worried that something was going to go wrong.

Dean had spent the car ride trying to mollify him but it hadn’t helped. Apparently Dad had found this thing and it could help them but the guy who had it knew Dad and Dean had to go, too. Dad talked to Bobby about a gun and Sam finally figured out it was the same one he’d been looking for when he’d left them in Oregon. Uncle Bobby looked serious and they had stopped talking and looked at Harry and then at him.

“I don’t know, John,” Uncle Bobby said.

Dad shook his head and spoke in a quiet voice. Sam pulled Harry inside and they tromped upstairs and tossed their stuff in a room. “Doesn’t it bug you?”

“What?”

“That they don’t ever tell us anything.” Sam sat on his bed watching as Harry shrugged.

“Dean’ll tell us,” Harry said, plopping on the bed across from Sam.

Thinking about Dean made Sam remember what he wanted to ask Harry. “Is there some way we can watch out for Dean?”

Harry narrowed his eyes and then dug in his duffel. Unshrinking a couple of books that Nana had made him buy, he looked through one on charms. They studied different things, things that would complement each other. Harry was better with charm work and Sam was better at transfiguration. They were both better than they wanted to be at divination but it was never helpful, even with their studies. Nana told them to appreciate the little glimpses that they got but not to let them rule their life.

“Tracking charm,” Harry said after a moment.

Sam shook his head. “The last time we tried that, Dean glowed.”

“Well, you got to admit, he was easy to track.” Harry exchanged a smile with Sam. “But this one is different; it works with the bond that we have. Actually, it will make it easier for Dean to find us if we need him.”

Harry and Sam spent a long time discussing it. It was getting dark outside and they wondered how much time they had before Dean would come upstairs. Sam asked about the faults and tried to make sure that Harry had considered everything. No, they decided, Dean wouldn’t glow or be able to get inside their heads. After the first time that Dean had _joined_ them but then been so stubborn about everything, they had devoted a few hours into seeing if they could keep him out. As far as Sam could tell, Dean hadn’t even tried since then.

Sam wanted to know how they could find Dean. Harry tried to explain but he decided to show Sam. Sitting down and facing each other, Harry showed Sam the way the bond could work right now.

“Close your eyes,” Harry directed him. “Now picture the bond, however you see it.”

Sam imagined a network of lights that stretched between him and his brothers. Like a web of light that looped around them and through them, connecting them all.

“Got it?”

Sam nodded.

“Now get ready, like you are going to cast a spell, gathering the magic inside you.”

“’kay,” Sam said, concentrating on the feeling of magic building inside of him.

“Now push your magic down the bond, however you . . . Woah!”

Sam opened his eyes at Harry’s exclamation. The room was lit up like a small star was in the room. Sam automatically let the magic go.

“Well that was unexpected,” Harry said.

“Dean is going to . . .”

The door slammed open and Dean stood there panting. He’d run from wherever he’d been. “Are you all right? What’s going on?” Dean looked at where Sam and Harry sat on the floor leaning against the bed, both of them looking guilty. “What the hell are you doing now?”

“Tracking charm,” Harry said quietly.

“Fuck that! That was no tracking charm . . .”

“I found one that would work with the bond, oh wise guardian. Now that Sam’s activated it . . .” Harry nodded at his little brother. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close your eyes, please,” Harry said to Dean.

Sam could tell Dean was angry and off kilter but he did it.

“Now think of Sam,” Harry said as he stood and helped Sam up, pushing him towards the corner away from where he’d been. Sam understood and quietly moved as far away as possible from where he’d been.

“Now point at him,” Harry directed Dean. Dean started to point at where Sam had been, but then his arm swung out until he was pointing at Sam.

“We can do it, too.” Harry tried to convince Dean this was a good thing.

“Guardian,” Dean said, pointing at himself and reminding them that he was the one supposed to be watching out for them.

Harry nodded. “This’ll make it easier. It won’t glow again. I promise.”

“Why did it?” Sam asked.

“Tell me how you saw us all connected.”

“With ropes of light.” As Sam spoke, he understood why everything had lit up. He was the one who’d powered the thing and the magic just used his image.

“Well, I’ve got to tell Dad and Bobby something,” Dean said.

“Just tell them we were practicing without you and we won’t do it again,” Harry said.

“Better not,” Dean said and shut the door behind him.

Sam and Harry waited for Dean to go downstairs before Sam moved back over and sat next to Harry again. “Did it work, then?” Sam asked.

Harry smiled and Sam suddenly wanted to kiss him. “What do you think? You put enough power in the thing to light up a small town.”

Sam blushed. He hadn’t meant to.

“Close your eyes again. Think of me,” Harry told him.

Sam did and he could feel Harry. He knew the wound that Harry had taken from a poltergeist in Chicago was hurting. Sam suppressed a wave of rage because Dad hadn’t let him go but had taken Harry and Dean. If he had taken Sam, Harry might not have gotten hurt.

“Your leg hurts,” Sam said.

“Huh?” Harry looked at Sam. Reaching down, he rubbed at his calf. Sam knew if he could see through the jeans there would be a jagged scar where Harry’s hand was. “I guess it does. I just ignore it now.” He smiled. “But see, it works. We can keep an eye on Dean.” And he could keep eye on them . . . so much for blocking him out.

Sam leaned against Harry, suddenly exhausted. Harry’s arm came around his shoulder. “We should unpack and get ready for bed. Uncle Bobby’ll want us downstairs for dinner soon and you know we’re going to get lectured.”

Groaning, Sam turned, pressing his nose into Harry’s neck. They had spent two days solid in the car and they both smelled like stale sweat and the certain smell of the Impala. It all said home to Sam. Smiling as Harry’s breath caught, Sam nuzzled his neck before he pressed his lips to it and kissed.

“Sam,” Harry said his name quietly but with longing.

“Yeah?” Sam asked as he moved his mouth up to Harry’s ear.

“Unpack,” Harry murmured and Sam huffed. Calling his wand to hand, he quickly had all the clothes put away in their respective dressers.

Not a moment too soon as Dad was yelling for them from the bottom of the stairs. Sam and Harry exchanged a rueful glance before they stood and made their way downstairs.

They sat and listened to Dad lecture them on using magic unsupervised and without permission. Both of them nodded and looked properly chastised, or at least that’s what Sam hoped.

The thing was, with the bond, whenever they did magic Dean would know. That meant they could do it even when Dean wasn’t physically present and it would count as being supervised. Of course, none of them had said anything to Dad or Uncle Bobby, hoping for it to go unnoticed. Yeah, Sam thought, except for the light thing they were right on track. Harry was ready to take his final exams but Sam still had at least another summer with Nana before they would let him try to take his test, even if he felt he was ready.

Uncle Bobby talked Dad into spending the night and therefore Dean followed Harry and Sam upstairs at bedtime. Sam lay on his bed listening to Harry explaining about the link and how it affected their bond. Dean murmured a question to Harry that Sam couldn’t make out and then there was the sound of kissing.

Sam kept his eyes open, staring at the darkness that enveloped him. If he closed his eyes he would slip down the links between them and, as much as he wanted to, he knew it would just drive Dean away. So he listened instead, imagining what was going on in Harry’s bed. He slid his hand inside his pajamas and cupped his balls before moving his hand up to quietly stroke his cock.

Little gasps and moans, silenced by lips, crossed the darkness of the room. Sam tried to keep his breathing steady as he jacked off, listening. The moans turned to hisses as Harry got nearer to his orgasm. Sam wondered if Harry knew he spoke as an íaxassee when he was turned on.

Sam stroked faster, still trying to be quiet. Biting his lip so hard it bled, he came with hardly a hitch in his breathing as Dean’s breath grew ragged and Harry encouraged him with small, quiet moans. They finished, at least Sam assumed so, and the bed creaked as Dean got up. Sam listened to him pull on his pants and then the door opened and Sam quickly shut his eyes as the light in the hall illuminated the room.

The door shut and Harry called his wand to him. Sam heard a cleaning spell murmured and then felt the gentle warmth run across his body. He looked over at where Harry was and, even though he couldn’t see him, he knew Harry was smiling at him.

“Thank you,” he whispered, trying not to sound sad or jealous.

“It’ll happen, just give it time,” Harry tried to reassure him. However, every sign he was getting from Dean said he regretted ever touching him, kissing him, and it just made Sam feel worse. He wasn’t going to push himself where he wasn’t wanted.

Dean slipped back into the room and Sam rolled onto his side, facing the wall. Closing his eyes, he thought of everything but Dean until he fell asleep. Waking in the morning, he wasn’t surprised to find Dad and Dean already gone.

Uncle Bobby told Sam that he was going to school the next day. Sam, Dean and Harry had all been at Bobby’s often enough that the school district more or less just rolled its eyes and let them in. Harry wasn’t going, he wasn’t planning on graduating anyway, so he was going to stay and help out Uncle Bobby while Sam was in school.

Sam had a bad feeling when he was going to leave the next morning. Waking Harry, he told him to make sure to put some wards up.

“You have a vision?” Harry asked as he rubbed his eyes.

“No, just a feeling.”

“’kay,” Harry said, sitting up. Bobby hollered up the stairs and Sam walked to the door.

“Remember,” he said.

“Wards, got it,” Harry muttered and then looked at Sam. “You okay?”

Sam couldn’t get the feeling of approaching doom to go away. However, he gave Harry his best smile. “I’m good.” He tried to believe it. “See you later.”

“’kay, bye.” Harry closed his eyes again and he waved in Sam’s direction. Sam left with one last look at Harry, sprawled out on the bed with his arm raised over his head. Sam’s eyes lingered on the patch of skin that showed between the edge of Harry’s t-shirt and his underwear.

Sam left, waving at Bobby as he walked down the drive to catch the bus.

 ** _Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage_** ~Lao Tzu  
Mid May 1998  
Dean is 19  
Harry is 17  
Sam is 16

Sam had been missing for almost the whole school day before the school bothered to call Bobby. Bobby had gotten Harry and Harry had panicked when he couldn’t feel Sam in the link. Soon after, Bobby got a call from John. Dean was going out of his head insisting something was wrong with Sam.

The next morning had seen John, Bobby, Dean, and Harry standing outside having a conference when an owl had shown up. Dean retrieved the note and, after Harry checked it for curses, Dad opened it.

“Damn it,” Dad cussed. “Those bastards took him.”

Dean and Harry exchanged a look. Little did they know that their nightmare was just beginning as they got in the car to follow Dad. Two days later, very tired, they pulled up in front of Nana Bishee’s house. Harry hadn’t slept much and Dean not at all. He was getting more and more frantic the longer Sam was missing.

“Where’s Sam?” were the first words out of her mouth. Dad silently showed her the paper. He still hadn’t showed it to Harry or Dean but both of them had been trying to reach Sam through their bond.

“Triad?” Bishee exclaimed out loud as she read through the letter. “How in the hells could he know that? Well, no matter now.” She looked up and her gaze focused on Harry. “Been having nightmares?”

Harry knew she was talking about those dreams, the ones that connected him with Voldemort. “A few, but nothing about Sam. He’s been very . . . uh, happy, but most of the battles seem to be going his way.”

If it could, her look would have cut him it was so sharp. “Haven’t you been practicing occlumency like I showed you?” Then her gaze swung to Dean and Harry stepped up. He wasn’t going to let Dean get blamed for any of this.

“I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell him or Sam.”

“Why not? You are supposed to help one another.” Nana’s voice was cold.

“It’s my problem,” Harry said, really not wanting to talk about this in front of Dad or Dean.

Nana ignored how uncomfortable Harry was and pressed him. “What affects one of you affects you all, especially since you linked.” Her voice was not accusing him of anything, just stating a fact.

“Linked?” John said.

“They’ve bonded, quite tightly,” Nana told him, looking at the boys. “Have you been able to find Sam through the bond?” Dad and Nana exchanged a look that made Harry worry. “They didn’t tell you?”

Dad shook his head.

“Well, time enough to beat them once we get Sam back.”

Once Nana said it, suddenly Harry began to think that maybe they had hope. “He’s there,” Harry told them, “but we can’t reach him. It’s like he’s sleeping and we can’t wake him up.”

“Both of you tried?”

Dean and Harry nodded in sync. “Well, they were stupid enough to send a letter, so let’s see what we can find out.”

John murmured something in Nana’s ear about a gun. Nana looked up at Dad and then at the both of them before she nodded.

“Harry, you see what kind of bird delivered this?” Nana asked.

Harry and Sam had studied lists of birds that were used for deliveries and as familiars. “Eagle Owl, Nana,” he told her, and she nodded. Casting some sort of discover spell that he hadn’t learned yet, Nana studied the paper closely.

“Malfoy,” Nana concluded. “But this was too easy so they must have known we would find out. Hmmmm,” she made a thoughtful sound. “Could be a set up, possibly for Malfoy. I think we need to go to Scotland.” She looked around the room. “All of us.”

Dad gave her a look that would have made any lesser man quake. Nana just nodded. “You too, John.”

Harry watched, disbelieving, as Dad backed down and nodded. “ID?” he asked.

“Will be taken care of. Don’t worry, John, we’ll find your son. Get the gun and meet us in the living room.”

Dad nodded and headed back outside. Harry wondered what gun but soon Dad was back. Nana had Harry summon all of their luggage while she created a portkey. Harry wasn’t looking forward to portkeying, considering what happened the last time, but he trusted Bishee with his life.

He wondered how Dad and Dean, but especially Dad, was going to be able to travel this way. The way he understood it, you had to have at least a little of your own magic in order to travel by portkey. Nana directed John to hold on to Harry and she wrapped her sinewy arms around Dean. Harry felt his Dad step up to his back and he relaxed into his father when he put his arms around him. John Winchester wasn’t the most loving father but compared to what Harry had been living with before with the Dursleys, John was overly affectionate.

Sighing slightly, Harry felt safe and protected in his father’s arms and on the plus side, he shot Dean a look, he didn’t have Nana pressed up behind him. Harry and Dean reached out when Nana told them to, touching the odd walking stick and saying a word. There was a tug and then a harder tug and Harry brought his dad along with him.

Landing on the ground outside of a castle, Harry straightened his glasses and took in his surroundings. They were at the edge of a forest, very old from the feeling of it, and there was a craggy slope with a long expanse of green that ran up against the castle. Harry could see the glint that said there was water nearby but mostly he stared at the castle.

“Welcome to Hogwarts.” A very large man stepped out of the darkness behind them. “It’s closed,” he said, looking up at the castle before he examined the group. “Oh.” His eyes grew larger as he spotted Nana Bishee. Harry wondered again just who she was. “Sorry, ma’m, yer expected,” he said with an awkward bow.

“Hagrid, it’s good to see you,” Nana said warmly. “This is Harry, Dean and John.”

“Harry?” Hagrid’s eyes flew to Harry’s forehead and for the first time Harry was self-conscious of his scar. “No, yer dead.”

“Rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated,” Nana misquoted Twain and Hagrid nodded. Harry got the feeling that the giant man missed the quote reference entirely. “What ‘bout him?” Hagrid nodded at John who was staring around.

“You still have the wooden ring?” Nana asked.

“But, Muggles, only Dumbledore,” Hagrid sputtered incomprehensively to Harry.

“Trust me, it’s fine with Dumbledore.” She spoke calmly and authoritatively and the man responded to it.

“If yer sure,” he said. Nana Bishee nodded and the giant Hagrid stepped away and dug in his pockets. Finally he pulled out a large wooden ring and handed it to Nana. She motioned to John and he came to her, bitching the entire time about how much a waste this was, how they needed to find Sam, and what the hell they were going to find at a decrepit castle.

She raised her eyebrow and held her hand out. Dad finally put his hand in hers and she slid the intricately carved wooden ring on his finger. He jumped as it shrank to fit. “Now look,” she said. Dad did and his mouth fell open. He looked at Harry and Dean and then back at the castle.

“You see that?”

“Yes, they do, John. Come on, we’ve wasted enough time,” Nana said as she turned and started walking up to the castle. It made Harry wonder what Dad had seen before.

“Come on, Dad,” Harry said and followed Nana. They were met at the entrance by the oldest person Harry had ever seen and he had seen some damned old people stop by Nana’s place.

“Anne, it was good of you to come, and you bring guests,” the old man said.

“Old bastard,” muttered Nana so that Harry just heard her. “Albus, are we welcome?”

“Of course, come on in,” Albus said and Harry felt something settle on him. He looked at Dean to see if he noticed.

‘Wards,’ he mouthed to his brother, who nodded. They understood wards. A place like this had to have some pretty spectacular ones. They were led through empty halls to a statue.

“Blood Pops,” Albus said and a door opened. They walked up a spiral staircase and into a room.

“Albus Dumbledore,” the old man said, holding his hand out to Dad.

“John Winchester,” Dad said, taking the man’s hand reluctantly.

Albus turned to his brother. “You must be Dean.”

“Yeah, but how . . .?” Dean glanced at Nana, who nodded, confirming that she had spoken about them to this man.

“Harry.” Albus sounded so happy it made Harry want to smile and he didn’t even know this man. “I’m happy you are here, though I wish it were under better circumstances.” His glance might have slid to Nana and it may have only been Harry’s imagination.

“You were doing such a bang up job with him,” Nana said. It sounded like an old argument. “He was safe.”

“But everyone here assumed he was dead. They lost hope,” Albus said. “But no matter, past is past, what we need to do is for the future.”

“How can we find my son?” Dad asked, getting right to the point.

“Joanne said you needed help. She mentioned a triad.”

Nana nodded at him and Dean. “ _He_ did it so Harry would come. Sent Malfoy’s eagle owl with the message. They have had Sam for a while, Albus.”

“Cissy and Draco are out of country and Lucius is in protective custody. He turned on his former boss when he started to bring in demons.”

Nana nodded although Harry jumped at the mention of Lucius, because it had been a Lucius who had kidnapped him and taken him to that graveyard.

“So he was set up,” Dad said.

“It seems that way,” Albus said. “Now that Harry’s here we should call an Order meeting. They might have information on Sam.”

“That would be good, Albus. Maybe the boys could tour the castle,” Nana suggested, sitting in a comfortable chair that Albus conjured for her.

Albus smiled and told them Nick would be glad to show them around. He called and a ghost came out of the wall. Harry automatically reached for a shotgun that wasn’t there and Dad had his gun out. Nana snorted and told dad to put his gun away. These were different ghosts, not like the spirits that they had to lay to rest.

Albus explained that there were many ghosts around and they were a part of the defense system of Hogwarts.

Harry nodded and looked at Dean, who shrugged. They followed the ghost down the stairs and out on a tour of Hogwarts. It could have been a little better because their guide kept forgetting that they couldn’t just go through walls, but that was soon sorted out.

Watching everything, Harry caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning, he could only see paintings. Then someone in the painting moved. They nodded at him so he nodded back, and they smiled.

“Did you see?”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Weird.”

They met some of the instructors who had stayed at Hogwarts. Harry wasn’t sure if they were there to be protected or if they were there to help protect. Probably some combination of the two, he figured. They were walking down a hall after they had negotiated the moving staircases, which Harry was impressed by and Dean thought was a colossal waste of time, when a small woman came out of a side door.

“Harry Potter,” she said, and then wailed and threw herself onto him, her spindly arms tangling around him.

“Sybil.” A severe voice came from behind them. “I am assuming you have a reason to be molesting this boy?”

“Severus,” the woman said, stepping back from Harry. He felt Dean brush an arm down his back to steady him.

“It’s Harry Potter,” the woman almost sobbed. “He’s come back, like Albus said he would.”

“Really?”

Harry could hear the disdain in the voice. “It’s Winchester,” Harry said, “not Potter.” He looked at the man. He was tall and had an imposing nose, with which he looked down at Harry.

“Come to save us all, have you, Potter?” The man spit the name out like poison.

Dean spoke up this time. “It’s Winchester.”

The man raised an eyebrow at Dean. “And you are?”

“Harry’s guardian,” Dean said, giving the proper name for his connection to Sam and Harry. The man raised both eyebrows. “And who the hell are you?”

The man glanced between them as if trying to gauge the truth of Dean’s statement. “Severus Snape, potion master,” he said in clipped tones.

Harry knew what it took to become a potion master. He had looked into it when he was studying and he was impressed, whether he wanted to be or not. Harry gave him a small bow and Dean looked at him like he was crazy. “Harry Winchester,” he said.

The man’s eyes searched his forehead for his scar. “Well, at least you managed not to get killed,” he said and, turning, he stalked down the hall away from them.

The skinny lady, Sybil, started to cry. “Oh, you’re going to die,” she wailed and ran back into the room that she had come out of, slamming the door. Harry exchanged a look with Dean and they both shrugged.

Nick was waiting for them to finish and led them on. They were stopped once more, this time by an older woman with black hair pulled into a tight bun on the back of her head. “Minerva McGonagall,” she introduced herself.

“Harry Winchester. This is my brother Dean.”

“Winchester,” she said. Harry could hear the question in her voice.

“Well, it used to be Potter,” he said and she nodded.

“You’ve grown up quite nicely,” she said. “I was sorry to hear about the Dursleys.” The funny thing was that she didn’t sound sorry. Harry cocked his head at her. “They really were the worst sort of Muggles but Albus insisted you would be safe there.”

“Yeah, good job with that,” Dean said, putting his hand on Harry’s shoulder. He wished he didn’t need the reassurance so badly, but he accepted it gladly.

Minerva looked at Dean for a moment, then dismissed him. Harry knew it would make Dean angry but he just put his hand on Dean’s where it rested on him, pushing calm down the bond. They had to keep their wits about them if they were going to find Sam.

A ghostly pulse ran down the hall and Minerva didn’t quite jump. “Albus called an Order meeting,” she muttered to herself. “Well, come on,” she said to Harry and Dean, “let’s go see what he wants. And so help me, if it’s to pour tea again he is getting that pot shoved . . .” Her voice trailed off as she stalked down the hall. Harry and Dean hurried to catch up with her.

“Blood Pops,” she spoke at the hidden stairs and Harry and Dean followed her upstairs into chaos.

Voices were raised. Harry could hear Dad shouting in a corner about anything meaning anything and there seemed to be a tribe of redheaded people that all talked at the same time. There was also a man with a crazy eye in the corner talking with a tall black man.

“Voldemort,” Albus said and it was as if someone had cast a silencing spell. Everyone turned and looked at the old man. “We are all here because of him. Report.”

The black man spoke authoritatively. “Someone has been making themselves at home at Malfoy manor. Malfoy assures us that there are blood wards, which means either they have Draco and Narcissa prisoners or that they are voluntarily back. I don’t think that’s likely.”

“Thank you, Kingsley,” Albus said and nodded at the next person.

“The goblins still call neutrality. I tried to sway them but, honestly, I don’t think if Harry Potter were here that they would join our cause.” One of the redheads spoke; he had a pony tail and an earring and under other circumstances Harry would have probably found him attractive but he was focused on finding Sam. It was like a beat in his head. He was pretty sure it came from Dean. Find Sam. They needed to find Sam.

The man in the corner spoke up. “What about the centaurs?”

“We can have some of the older mares and stallions but they require enough in reserve to protect the colts,” the big man, Hagrid, spoke.

“Hagrid, get together with Moody and figure out numbers,” Albus said into the silence that followed the giant’s speech. “Following on that good news, Harry has come home, bringing allies.” The old man seemed to wait until his words would have the biggest effect; a thought that was only made stronger when Albus winked at him.

The room erupted in noise again, then it settled down as people started to look around and focused on Harry, Dean and John.

“We are not here for your war.”

Everyone in the room looked at John. “We are here for my son. So tell me you have a clue where he is and we will take it from there.”

“Of course, Mr. Winchester, but we will need to organize and gather information to make sure we are sending you into the right place. It’s not like we have just been sitting on our hands since the man returned from the dead three years ago.”

“You are certain that this guy, this Voldemort, took my son?” Dad ignored the gasps in the room.

“Not directly, but he was behind it,” Albus said.

“Fine. Organize, gather, and hurry the hell up, because that bastard has got my son. Another of my sons,” Dad said, looking at Harry. “And I have had enough.”

“Of course.” Albus steepled his fingers together as he nodded at Dad. “Molly could take your boys back to her house. They will be safe, I promise. We could finish up here and we could all meet later when we have a plan, if you approve.” The man nodded at one of the redheads. Harry assumed the older woman was Molly. Harry could appreciate Albus trying to make some kind of peace with Dad.

John looked at Dean and Harry felt his hand taken in Dean’s warm grip. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dean shrug. No matter where they went, they’d be together.

“But surely the older one can stay here,” Molly said, and Harry tightened his grip on Dean.

“They are bonded,” Albus said, even though they hadn’t mentioned the bond to him. “He’s Harry’s guardian, Harry and Sam’s.”

“Well then.” Molly seemed a bit taken aback. “They certainly do things odd in the states. No offense, Madam.” Molly said the last directed at Nana with a little curtsy.

Nana played it off like the whole thing was her idea without actually saying so. Harry was relieved they wouldn’t have to hide that they were bonded. He gave Nana a small smile in thanks.

Technically, they should have all been at least seventeen before bonding fully but Sam and Dean had bonded on a basic level when Sam had been a baby. Harry had been added in and had made his own kind of subconscious bond with Dean and Sam, too. So when Sam had done the tracking charm, he had done more than light up the night. He had bonded them, almost like a marriage. Harry had had lots of time for research in the car, with nothing better to do other than worry about Sam and try to find him down their link.

Hours later, Harry and Dean were happy to be leaving the Weasleys. They were mostly boys, but there was this girl who kept following him around. Loud and overwhelming was Harry’s first impression. They kept trying to separate Dean and him. He understood why. They wanted to talk to him and make sure he wasn’t being influenced by the Winchesters. However, with Sam missing, neither Harry nor Dean really wanted to be out of each other’s sight.

One of the boys, Ron, was around his age. When Harry introduced himself as Harry Winchester the boy had nodded and been nice enough. But then he saw Harry’s scar and his eyes went huge. “Potter,” he said. “But you’re dead.”

“Yeah, so I’ve been told.” Harry didn’t deny he was Potter. “This is my brother and my guardian.” He wanted to be clear on what Dean’s position was in their society. As guardian, even though Dean hardly had enough magic in him to count, it put him in a pretty good position to be respected and listened to.

“Ron?” A young woman with bushy hair walked down the stairs. “I . . . oh, hello,” she greeted Harry and Dean. “I’m Hermione,” she said, holding her hand out.

“Hermione, this is Harry and Dean. They’re here to help with the battle,” Ron told the girl.

“Not really,” Harry said. “We’re here to get my brother.”

“Oh, you’re American,” Hermione said. “What happened to your brother?”

“He was kidnapped,” Dean spoke up. “My dad is working with your group, your Order, on how to get him back.”

“Dean, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know they were operating on the other side of the pond yet. I thought that Voldemort would consolidate his power here before moving out.” Hermione’s words brought gasps from some of her audience.

“They took him because of me,” Harry admitted. Dean made a kind of negating noise but Harry ignored him. He pulled his hair back from his forehead. “Apparently, there is some prophesy about the two of us.”

Hermione snorted dismissively. “Most prophesies aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”

“Yeah, well, apparently _he_ believes it. He killed my family and tried to kill me because of it.”

“He killed my family, too, but not for anything as nice as a prophesy. Just because they dared to bring me into the world. Two Muggles having a mudblood daughter.” Her voice cracked a little bit and Ginny got up and went to her, whispering in her ear.

“Well Harry, Dean, I wish I could say it’s been a pleasure but, I rarely lie. I hope you find your brother and I really hope that if you get the chance, you will please take that bastard out.” She turned and Ginny followed her up the stairs.

“It happened over Christmas, she was staying here and there were a bunch of attacks on Muggleborns and their families. She near went mental when she heard, thought that if she’d been there she could have stopped it,” Ron told them after they went back into the living room. “It’s stupid, all she could have done was die. But it was family so I understand.”

Harry and Dean both nodded. Family was everything to them.

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Ron asked.

“Ronald Weasley, what kind of question is that?” Molly asked as she walked back into the room.

“It’s okay, it’s a valid one,” Harry said. “Yes, he’s still alive. I can feel him, and so can Dean. We just can’t find him.”

Ron nodded and held his hand out to Harry. The other wizard shook it. “Looks like it’s time for you to go. Good luck finding your brother.” Harry wondered, if things had been different, would they have been friends.

Harry said thanks and then followed Molly into the kitchen. She showed him and Dean an address on a piece of paper and then pushed them toward the fireplace. “Just say Order of the Phoenix and you’ll get there.” She tossed a handful of powder on the fire.

Dean went in first with Harry right behind him. Molly did try to say something to him but he wasn’t about to leave Dean alone at some strange place.

Tumbling out of the fire place, he was surprised to see someone he knew. Sirius.

“Here, let me help you up, and welcome to my house.”

Harry looked around. It was dark and gloomy. Then someone started screaming in the hallway. Darting out, he found Dean listening to a picture that screamed horrible things at him.

“Oh you think so?” Dean responded to some screamed question.

“Just ignore her,” Sirius said from behind Harry. “She was a stupid, prejudiced old woman when that was painted.” He reached up and closed a curtain that, while it didn’t silence her, muted her somewhat. “That’s my mum,” he said sarcastically.

Dean turned and gave Sirius a look, not quite not threatening but not overtly hostile. “Where’s Sam?”

“Let’s go to the kitchen. Everyone should be there.”

The kitchen seemed to be in the basement, since they went down stairs past the front door to reach it. Harry reached out and touched Dean, just a hand pressed against his shoulder, but it was something Harry needed. Everything was happening so fast, all these people seemed to have expectations of him, and his head was spinning. Dean placed a warm hand on his and it helped.

Filing into the kitchen, Harry saw chaos. There were people in groups gathered around the table. Everyone was talking and, as far as he could tell, no one was listening. He could hear his dad from somewhere in the back of the kitchen arguing about something again, or perhaps still.

Albus cleared his throat and then he did it again before finally everyone settled down.

“Report,” Albus said.

“There is definite activity at Malfoy mansion,” a pretty, pink-haired girl spoke up.

“And Lucius is still in protective custody. We even checked for Polyjuice,” the old man with the whirling eye said.

“Any proof that they have taken a captive there?” Dad asked.

Albus answered. “Well, except for the fact that the activity began around the same time your son was taken, no.”

“So it might be a trap,” Dad snapped.

“Oh, it’s definitely a trap,” Severus Snape spoke up from somewhere nearby. “You just have to make sure it’s sprung and that you are not inside it.”

Dad looked across the room at Harry and Dean, who both nodded. They wanted to, they _had_ to get to Sam as soon as they could.

“They’re bonded right? Guardian bond? Can’t we trace it somehow and make sure?” Minerva spoke from where she sat near Albus.

Again everyone in the room turned to look at them. “They said but I would hardly credit it.” Snape sounded dismissive.

“Guardian bond and more, or do you want to question me, too?” Nana Bishee spoke from Dad’s side. “Now, enough of this nonsense. Do you have a way to trace it that would be undetectable?”

Harry wondered what was so damn special about their bond. He had read about them in books, which meant that others had had them, too. Maybe he would find out later. Everyone was looking at Nana like a deer in the headlights. Under any other circumstances, Harry would have laughed.

“If we could get near to where he is we might be able to contact him. We should be able to contact him. We know he’s alive.” Harry spoke into the silence.

“You think,” someone commented.

“We know,” Dean said threateningly.

“I could get you close, but you might spring the trap,” Severus warned them.

“Don’t worry, we’re ready if that happens,” Dad said and Harry shot him a smile and was relieved when he got a nod in return.

“Severus, you know how to contact us,” Albus said solemnly.

“You are not going to let Severus take Harry there,” Sirius’s voice rang out. “He’s not to be trusted.”

“I could say the same thing about you, mutt,” Severus responded and Harry could see Dad nodding. “Who was the idiot who led them to Potter in the first place?”

Sirius’s mouth just opened and shut, and an older man in a rumpled suit put his hand on Sirius’s shoulder and pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “That was low Severus,” the man said quietly.

“But true,” Severus said. “Come on. If we are going to do this we should just do it.”

Harry nodded and he and Dean headed back upstairs to the parlor, passing the still mumbling portrait. He knew there were arguments flying fast and furious behind them but he also knew he was going to save Sam. They had to.

 ** _Honor isn't about making the right choices. It's about dealing with the consequences._** ~Author Unknown  
September 1998  
Dean is 19  
Harry is 18  
Sam is 16

Severus got them there but he told them to hide as a woman walked out to meet him. Blending into the shadows, they waited until Severus and the woman had gone inside before they slipped around the back of the house. They entered and found a blond boy, simply waiting. Dean had never seen anyone so pale. Harry had tensed up beside him but Dean didn’t spare him more than a glance. They couldn’t afford to be distracted.

“Where is my brother?” Harry asked, pointing his wand at the blond. The boy shook so hard Dean thought he might just collapse right there, but he gestured down the hall. Something was wrong. Well, more wrong, considering.

“Cancel a spell,” Dean told Harry.

“What?”

“Just cancel a fucking spell,” Dean snapped and Harry said, “ _Finite Incantatem._ ”

The blond collapsed on the floor in front of them. Dean moved closer and Harry got in front of him, wand out.

“You need to get out,” the boy said. “Trap.”

“We know. Where is our brother? Where is your father?”

Dean looked at Harry and figured out that this was the young Malfoy. He must look an awful lot like his dad if Harry recognized him.

“Prison. They said they could get him out if I came home, but they just cast Imperious on me the minute I Apparated in. You-Know-Who is here, waiting for you.”

Dean was about to snap the boy in two when the bond flared up between Sam and them. He knew exactly where Sam was. Turning, he started down a hall. The blond ran after them. “You’ll have a better chance if it seems like you’re my prisoners. Are you really Potter?” he asked Harry.

Making an instant decision he hoped he wouldn’t regret, he decided to trust the scared young man. “Dean, Harry,” he introduced them.

“Draco,” the blond said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spare wand on you? It’s just, it’ll look more convincing and m..m..mine was broken.”

Harry looked at Dean and they both felt the urgent need to get to Sam and Dean was willing to do anything at that point to make it happen. Harry slipped Sam’s wand out of an inside pocket on his jacket. Handing it to Draco, they put their hands behind their backs like they were tied and let him lead them deep into the manor.

Knowing that they had deviated from the plan, Dean just hoped that luck was with them this one time. Harry flinched beside him and Dean nudged him with his elbow.

“He’s angry,” Harry muttered. “I think someone was spotted.”

Dean nodded and tried to help Harry out, pulling pain down the line until his head felt like it was going to explode. Dean had no idea how Harry dealt with this on a regular basis.

“Halt,” someone called from up ahead of them.

“New prisoners for the Dark Lord,” Draco said fairly monotone.

“Oh, it’s you. Go on, then.” He motioned Draco on. As soon as Draco was behind him, he hit the guard with a stunner and Harry bound and gagged him. The wooden paneled hall gave way to stone as they walked downwards.

Draco didn’t need to tell them when they got to Sam’s cell, both Harry and Dean knew it. They got the cell open and Sam stared at them like they were ghosts. Dean and Harry stared at Sam in horror. He was bruised and bleeding so bad that Dean was surprised he could stand.

“D..D..Dean?” Sam stuttered. Dean was livid. Whoever had done this to Sam would pay.

“Sammy,” Dean said, watching in horror as Sam raised a clearly broken arm that was attached to the wall behind him. All of Sam’s arms and legs were chained. Harry quickly released him and Dean held his hand out for Sam’s wand. Draco debated for a moment, thinking about turning on them, Dean could tell. However, he stiffened his spine and handed the wand over to Dean.

Pushing the wand into Sam’s hand, just to make him feel safer, Dean murmured over all of his wounds. Later Sam told them about how he’d fought back until they’d given up and just chained him to the wall. He thought he might have killed a few people, but he wasn’t sure.

Draco leading the way, they headed back up towards an exit, any exit. Dean was feeling stronger than he had been. Sam beside him and Harry on his other side made him feel whole. They stepped into a foyer and Harry reached out and clawed at Dean’s side. Turning, he’d barely had time to catch him before he hit the ground.

“He knows, Dean. Oh fuck, he knows,” Harry said, holding his hand up to his head.

Draco started to hyperventilate at Harry’s words. Dean reached out and put his hand on Draco’s arm. “We’re going to get out of here, all of us. Come on.” He pulled Harry to his feet and Draco gave him a shaky nod before moving again.

They had made it outside and almost past the wards so they could portkey when a cold voice spoke out of the darkness to their right. “Potter,” it hissed.

Dean pulled up short as Harry nearly dragged him to the ground. Harry was in so much pain and Dean couldn’t help. Instead he let Sam take care of Harry and Dean stood between them and the man that was responsible for all of this. Draco was frozen in fear and Dean dragged him behind him, too.

“What are you going to do? You have no magic. You have nothing.”

Dean could sense more than hear Sam and Harry stand up behind him. Then there was a cold hard weight in the back of his pants and he knew what he needed to do. “I’ve got more than you ever had,” Dean mocked Voldemort, waiting for the perfect opportunity. He didn’t know how Dad had managed to get the colt to him but he wasn’t going to lose the opportunity.

“More of what? Nothing, you’ve got nothing, you are nothing.” Red eyes bore into his and Dean knew that if he had just a bit more magic the man would be tearing his way through Dean’s mind. As it was, Dean was too near a squib for it to matter- the attempts just kept failing.

“ _Non timebo mala_.”

Voldemort threw back his head in laughter. It was a hissing, unpleasant sound that Dean could go his entire life without hearing again. “Was that supposed to be a spell?”

Dean had the gun out and pointed at Voldemort. “No,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Dad had made sure that they salted and burned the body, along with the snake that had been his familiar. They had dropped dead at the same time. Dean didn’t know that because he had been completely focused on keeping Harry alive and Sam sane.

It seemed that Harry had been tied tighter to Voldemort than they had thought and, when he died, he dragged Harry with him but Dean wouldn’t let him go. Dean had lost or sacrificed almost everything for his family. He was damned if he would just let them go without a fight.

Fight he had, pushing all of his love down the link to Harry, and Sam, too. He couldn’t do this without them. He needed them. He loved them.

Sam sat sobbing by Harry’s hand in the infirmary at Hogwarts. They had healed all of the physical wounds, but Dean knew there were others still there. Sam had a small break down and told him what had happened.

“At first I was expecting you guys to show up right away. But after Voldemort came and saw me, I was hoping you wouldn’t. He crawled around inside my brain, called me perverted, offered me as a piece of ass to his Death Eaters.” Sam’s voice was quiet and calm.

Dean felt his muscles bunch under his skin. He wanted to kill the son of a bitch again. Taking a deep breath, he tried to calm himself. Dean didn’t want to be calm; this was his little brother and someone had hurt him bad. But Dean knew that if he blew up then Sam would just shut up. He needed to listen and not react.

“Th. .th. . they raped me. They hurt me. There was this woman . . . did you know there’s a spell to make you hard?” Sam asked. Dean made quiet negative noises, trying to encourage Sam to keep on talking.

“They cursed me while they fucked me, said . . . said it made it tighter.” Sam closed his eyes and Dean wished more than anything that Harry was awake. Reaching out, he grasped on to Sam’s hand. “After a while I was so relieved when they didn’t curse me, it made me hard.” He laughed a laugh that was more than halfway to a sob.

“I hate them. I hate them. They hurt me and made me like it and I hate them.” Tears started rolling down Sam’s face. Dean didn’t know what to say, knowing that anything that came out of his mouth right now would sound idiotic. He just held on to his brothers.

Sam had pushed everything away so he could focus on Harry. Dean had watched him do it. He despaired. How was he supposed to make this better?

Dean was holding onto Harry’s other hand as someone put a hand on his shoulder. It was so comforting that he assumed it was Dad, but then magic began to flow into him from the contact. Dean lifted his eyes to meet the sparkling blue ones of Dumbledore.

“He’s lost,” Sam said.

“Then we must light his way home,” Dumbledore said and sent more magic into Dean. “Well?”

Well what? Dean wanted to ask, but before he could open his mouth, he knew what he needed to do. Looking up at Sam, who suddenly had hope in his eyes for the first time since Harry fell, Dean nodded. He pushed the magic down his bonds with Sam and Harry, imagining the brightest light following it. Closing his eyes against the bright light that imposed a negative on his eyesight for a moment, he held his breath as the last of the shared magic left him.

Harry moaned and it was all Dean could do not to whoop with joy. The nurse at the school, medi-witch, Dean thought she was called, came over to see what was going on. She cast a spell on Harry and then smiled. Dean felt his knees weaken with the smile.

“He’s going to be fine. I don’t know if I can say the same thing for your dad.”

Dean looked over at the bed across the ward; their Dad had taken more than one curse. He was awake and looking just fine. Dean looked back at the nurse with confusion plain on his face.

“He’s a horrible patient. I may have to kill him to get him to stay still long enough to heal,” she said with a smile that made Dean relax.

“He always has been,” Dean agreed with her quietly.

“I heard that, traitor,” Dad said.

“Well, Mr. Winchester, _I_ will make sure you are healed fully before you leave.”

Dean didn’t want to argue with the woman and apparently neither did Dad, who just grunted. Looking back at Harry, Dean saw his eyes were open.

“There was this light,” Harry said with a smile.

“Imagine that,” Dean said, smiling back.

When Dean woke up most mornings, he was sure that the whole thing was just a horrible dream; that Sam hadn’t been taken, that Harry and Sam both hadn’t nearly died and that the horrible things that had happened to Sam was just a nightmare.

But then Sam would whimper next to him and Dean would curl around his brother and remind him that he was safe. Harry would press up against the front of him and do the same thing. It hadn’t taken Dad that long to be okay with them sleeping together, seeing as the first night they got Sammy back, he screamed for hours, his voice going before anyone could calm him.

Dean still didn’t know everything that had happened to his brother, but what he did know made him want to go back to kill the bastards that did this to him all over again.

Nana said Sammy wasn’t crazy, just hurt, and that they had the best chance to heal him. She offered to let them stay with her but Dad had insisted they find their own place. Dad actually got a job at a shop, and Dean and Harry stayed home and took care of Sam.

Sometimes Sam would be there with them, talking and joking, and other times it was like he wasn’t even in his body. At first Sam withdrew from everyone, but Harry somehow managed to get through to him. They spoke about visions and premonitions and real and illusions, about pain and how relieved they were that the people who had done this were dead and about how horrible they felt about being relieved. Dean didn’t understand it, but Sammy was way more complicated than he’d been before, which was saying a whole lot.

Bobby said Sam should go see a shrink but who the hell could they trust? Dean asked Nana if she knew someone or something that could help. Time, she told him. Give him time.

Slowly, Sam and Harry grew closer as both of them healed. Dean watched it happen, he felt it happen, and he was happy for his brothers that maybe they had found a way to whole again.

Sam went back to school in early November. Harry and Dean both watching as he left, worry in their eyes. Dad had insisted that Sam try to get back to a routine. Dean suspected it was because Dad was getting antsy. Dean had killed the bastard that had been after Harry, but there was still the thing that took their mom. It was out there and now that he had the Colt, the gun that could kill anything, he was determined to take care of things. Dean could see it in his eyes when he cleaned and reloaded the guns, when he laid the salt out, when he stood looking at Sam.

Dean withdrew as much as he could from the links that they shared. Guilt for letting them take Sam, for nearly killing Harry, ate at him.

“I have had it,” Harry said one morning after they had watched Sam leave.

Dean looked at him, wondering what was wrong now, wondering if he had the energy to deal with it.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Harry snapped at him.

Dean felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. Him? Something was wrong with him? He was trying his best to survive, to make sure that Harry and Sam were taken care of, and there was something wrong with him?

“I know you think you fucked up. You’re our guardian and you think you failed Sam, that you failed me, but we found him because of you and right now you’re failing both of us.”

He thought that he should be angry, be defensive, but Harry was right. He had _failed_ Sam and Harry. He didn’t know how he was ever going to make that better.

Harry spoke quietly. “You did not fail us. Damn it, you saved both us, but you have got to stop pulling back. It hurts, Dean.”

He hadn’t even thought that they had noticed. “But you two . . .” Dean started to say.

Harry quickly interrupted. “Us three, Dean. It’s the three of us, and before that it was the two of you. You are the most constant thing in Sam’s life and you’re running away. Come here,” Harry said and Dean suddenly felt like the deer in the headlights.

Moving out of the window and over to the couch, Harry led Dean and sat him down. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. He was moving around with no control over his body. He wondered if Harry was pulling something on him, but when he really thought about it, it wasn’t like Harry was making him do anything.

“What?” Dean said.

Harry moved closer, putting his hand up to Dean’s face. “Why?” he asked. “Why don’t you touch me? Why don’t you touch Sam? We _need_ you. You’re pulling back and pushing us away.”

Dean wished he didn’t feel so weak, so helpless. How could he try to tell them that he was the wrong person for guardian? They had picked the wrong person.

“No, Dean,” Sam said from the entryway into the kitchen. “You’re the right one. You just have to believe in me, believe in us.”

“What?”

“You pulled me,” Sam whispered as he walked into the room. “It’s the first time since you woke Harry that I felt anything from you with the bond. I was afraid you broke it and didn’t want to tell me.” He finished talking, knees on the floor, his head in Dean’s lap.

Dean stroked Sam’s hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, although he wasn’t sure what he was sorry for. Harry pulled him close for a kiss, and Dean made a huffing sound that had Sam lifting his head to watch. Pulling back, Harry turned his head to look at Sam.

“Look at him,” he told Dean, touching his jaw.

Turning his head, he looked at Sam.

“No. _Look_ at him,” Harry said.

Dean did. He looked, really looked, at Sam for the first time since they had saved him. He’d been all wrapped up in how much he’d let Sam down that he couldn’t face him. His guilt wouldn’t let him. Now, his eyes met Sam’s and he wasn’t sure what he saw, but it wasn’t blame.

Sam moved, shoving Dean’s legs apart and moving between them. “You saved me,” he said, reaching out and touching Dean’s cheek. He wrapped his long fingers around the back of Dean’s neck, his thumb still on his cheek. Dean wondered again how in the hell his baby brother had gotten so big. “If you really don’t want to do this . . .” Sam said as he leaned in.

Grabbing Sam’s shirt, Dean pulled him against his chest. “I never said I didn’t want to,” he said and kissed Sam. It was better than he remembered it being. His tongue swirled and dipped around Sam’s, teeth bit and they were both grabbing each other’s face. Sam ended up straddling Dean, licking his way into Dean’s mouth.

Sam broke the kiss and reached over to where Harry had moved, pulling him towards them. “Sam,” Harry said, obviously trying to stay out of what was happening. Dean slid his hand up Harry’s arm to his shoulder, pulling on him, too.

Looking at Dean and Sam, Harry had a hopeful expression on his face. Dean gave him a slow nod. He could do this. He wanted to. He needed to. Harry leaned in and kissed Sam and then Dean, leaving both of them panting.

“Bedroom?” Harry suggested. Sam quickly crawled off of Dean and was holding out a hand to help him up. It gave Dean a moment to think about whether this was the right thing to do. The smile on Sam’s face began to fall and Dean made up his mind. Reaching out, he took Sam’s hand. Sam pulled him up and they stood, breathing each other’s air for a moment.

Harry took both of their hands and led them down the hall to their bedroom. Dean was pushed up against the wall by a semi-desperate Sam.

“Oh god, Dean,” he muttered as he kissed down Dean’s throat and pulled at his t-shirt. Dean let himself be manhandled by Sam, just holding on to his shoulders. Harry stepped up behind Sam and pressed him into Dean while sliding his hands up Sam’s stomach. “Please,” Sam begged.

“Shhh, Sammy,” Dean said, and pulled him close for a kiss. “It’s okay,” he tried to reassure his little brother. He gave Harry a look over Sam’s shoulder that apparently got his thought across, because Harry had his wand out and banished their clothes. Sam gasped at the unexpected nakedness and Dean ran his hands up Sam’s arms, leaving goose bumps behind.

Dean couldn’t believe, not really, that this was happening. He had dreamed about it so often that he wasn’t sure if it was real or just another dream. Sam reached between them and wrapped his nimble fingers around Dean’s cock and he decided he didn’t care.

Moving the three of them towards the bed, Dean stopped as Harry’s knees bumped. Climbing on the bed, Harry looked at the two of them.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said and then he took his glasses off and set them on the bedside table.

Sam buried his head in Dean’s neck. Dean ran his hand up and down Sam’s back, letting his fingers trail down and touch his ass. Sam groaned and started whispering pleas against Dean’s neck. Dean gave into temptation, cupping Sam’s ass and pulling him hard against him. Their cocks rubbed and they both moaned as Dean’s fingers touched Sam’s hole.

Dean heard a whispered spell and looked over at Harry, who just grinned at him. His fingers brushed Sam’s hole again and came away wet. Sam moaned as Dean pressed his finger slowly into him. Pulling his finger out, he pushed Sam onto the bed. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.

Looking up at him, Sam spread his legs for Dean to crawl between them. Harry leaned down and kissed Sam as Dean sucked Sam’s cock into his mouth. Dean could feel a slight pressure of magic pushing down on him. He looked up at Harry and Sam and decided it was the bond, reestablishing itself again.

Dean sucked on Sam, wrapping his hand around his cock and then licking it like a lollypop. He pressed one finger and then two into his youngest brother, listening to Sam’s hitching breath. Sam was so tight around his fingers that the thought of what he wanted to do to him, had Dean nearly coming, his cock jumping against his belly.

Pressing upwards, Dean easily found Sam’s prostate. Sucking Sam down to the base of his cock, Dean ran his fingers alongside the skin covering the sensitive spot. Sam pressed upwards into his mouth and Dean tried not to grin around Sam’s cock. Slowly, he stroked his brother closer to orgasm, pushing three fingers into Sam. Sam was moaning incoherently, getting closer and closer to losing control. Dean heard Harry whisper something into Sam’s ear and that was it, he clutched at the blanket and thrust up into Dean’s mouth, his cock pulsing as he came. Dean swallowed.

Sam pulled at him and Dean came off of his dick with a slurp. Pulling him up, first Sam kissed him and then Harry did, both of them moaning at the taste of Sam in his mouth.

“You really want to do this?” Dean couldn’t help but ask, fearful of the memories it might bring up.

“Oh, hell yes,” Sam said, pulling him in for another kiss. Dean sat up and, lifting Sam’s legs, placed his cock at Sam’s hole, slowly pushing, watching as Sam relaxed and let him in. Stopping and letting Sam adjust around him, Dean was kissed by Harry who murmured in his ear.

“You wanna know what I told Sam?”

Dean nodded and Harry got up and pressed against the back of him, his cock rubbing against Dean’s ass. “I told him I was going to fuck you while you fucked him.”

Dean groaned and looked down at Sam, who was staring up at him, love in his eyes. “You want?” he asked Sam.

Sam nodded and it was Dean’s turn to moan. He pulled out so that Sam was stretched around the head of his cock. “Fuck,” he muttered and pushed back in. Harry slid around behind him and snuggled up against his back.

“You want?” he repeated Dean’s question as his hard dick rubbed against Dean’s ass.

He gasped as Harry moved back and ran his fingers down Dean’s crack to his hole and lower to cup his balls. Harry whispered a spell again and this time Dean was the one who was wet. Slipping in one finger and then quickly two, Harry took his time as Dean rocked back on his fingers and then into his brother.

Dean paused as Harry moved and positioned his cock at Dean’s hole, slowly pushing in. Sam’s eyes widened as Dean got even harder inside him. Moving slowly, Dean let Harry set the rhythm, pushing and pulling, giving and taking, and Dean’s head was spinning.

He could feel the magic building around him, inside of him. It wasn’t his, he hardly had enough to count, but the bond and their closeness, mentally and physically, was amplifying everything.

Every breath, every touch, it was overwhelming. He was swimming in sensations. Harry kissed his neck and Dean almost came from that. Sam brushed his fingers across Dean’s chest. It felt like sandpaper and silk at the same time. Dean whimpered.

“Come on,” Harry said, pushing into him and pushing him into Sam.

Dean slid his hand across Sam’s hard cock. Sam tightened down on him and Dean lost what control he had. Fucking into Sam and back onto Harry, Dean set a ragged, sloppy pace until he couldn’t control himself anymore, shuddering as he came, hot and wet into Sam as Sam came, messy and hot between them.

Harry paused, his cock still rock hard in Dean’s ass. Gripping Dean’s hips, he fucked hard into him. The magic that was there all around suddenly filled Dean as Harry came. Gasping at the feeling of love and oneness with everything, but especially with his brothers, Dean fell against Sam.

Harry pulled out and rolled beside Sam as Dean slid off the other side. Maybe things weren’t perfect or, by the longest stretch of imagination, normal, but they were good. And maybe good was enough, Dean thought, as he snuggled against Sam, entwining his fingers with Harry’s. Sam was getting better, Dean was getting better and Harry was just Harry.

Someone muttered a spell and they were all cleaned up, Sam snug between Dean and Harry.

Dean knew it was only a matter of time before Dad started hunting again. Knowing that Dad wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving Sam, he would probably be coming with them. That would go over like a lead balloon unless . . . Dean considered that Sam might feel safer if they were all around.

‘Time,’ Harry mouthed at him and Dean held in a sigh. Time. They would just have to wait and see. Dean nodded slightly at Harry and snuggled in close to Sam, laying his head on Sam’s shoulder. Sam’s arm came around him and pulled him close. Dean could feel his fingers digging into his arms.

“Shh,” Dean hushed Sam, calming him down. He nuzzled Sam’s neck, breathing in the smell that he’d been afraid he’d never smell again. Sam was here, Harry was here and Dean was here. That would be enough. It would have to be.


End file.
